Monday 31st August
2015
|
16:47 BST
Most of yesterday was not exactly terrible,
but it wasn't much good. It was dull, merely
tepid, and dry - dry until about 8pm ! I guess the
temperature probably hit 19 or 20° C, and while
there was a risk of rain in the evening, it was
perfectly comfortable for short shirt sleeves and
no coat. At 8pm it started to rain, and I was
caught with no protection as I made my way to a
bus stop, but it didn't feel too bad. The rain
stopped half an hour later, but started again
sometime after dark, and I think it has been
raining, with occasional breaks, ever since. The
temperature today is a cool feeling 15 or 16° C -
cool if you are inactive, but it is still possible
to feel quite warm when being active. With the
bank holiday over, tomorrow will be a degree or
two warmer, less dull, and a lot drier. There is
even the chance of a few sunny periods in the
afternoon, and of course the a shower is forecast
just for the time I am going home from work !
I only did two things of note yesterday. At
least two is all that comes to mind right now. The
first was to take yet another walk to Aldi - my
third in a week - to buy some stuff. I bought some
soft drinks, some salad type stuff, and some meat
to cook in my new mini oven, although it was a
couple of cheese and leek, smoked haddock
fishcakes that ended up in there yesterday. I also
bough several assorted packs of
pre-wetted/soaped/whatevered cleaning tissue type
things - and I've already got through one whole
pack already !
The fish cakes were very nice. It's been
some time since I've been able to cook anything
like fishcakes properly. Cooking them in the
microwave works, and they are tasty, but the
texture is obviously not quite right. I had them
early in the afternoon, and they filled me just
perfectly for going out at a little after 5pm. I
was heading to The Coach And Horses, a pub in
Beckenham where a music event was taking place.
There were four bands on the bill. The first
was actually not a band, but a Mark Dobson as solo
artist "Dobbo" playing (electro)acoustic guitar
and singing his own songs - not quite my "thing",
but he is pretty good. Next on the bill were The
Spangles - an all female "super group"....well
mostly all female. The only drummer available was
a man who dressed in drag for the occasion - and
pulled it off quite well ! He was right at the
back of a very small and crowded stage area, and I
never did manage to get a close up of him/her !
This was outside the pub before Dobbo took to
the stage.
Nina Proud, Phaedra (Jo's daughter) and Jo
Corteen look up to a 6ft tall Rob Todd.
From left to right - Michelle Whitestar on bass,
"Delores" on drums, Patsi Spike Oshea on vocals
and keyboards, Auntie Doreen on saxaphone, Jo
Corteen on lead guitar, and Geoff Paice on the
mixer !
It was as busy outside the pub as it was inside
!
The coach and Horses
is quite a small pub, and I can imagine that
the landlord was very pleased with his takings
yesterday. Inside it was very crowded, and it
was pretty crowded outside. It was lucky that
it stayed dry as long as it did. Soon after
The Spangles finished their set I decided to
go home. I had really only gone there to see
them, although I would have like to see the
last band - Ferdinands Northern Ferrets. I've
seen them before, and they are really
enjoyable. Unfortunately the third band (of
four) was Whitestar, and I don't care for
them. They are very good musicians, but they
only play their own original material - which
is both good and bad. For me it is bad because
there is nothing outstanding that grabs my
attention, and without "hook" I find it really
boring to watch them.
I think it was around 8pm when I left
the pub, and of course that was the time the
rain decided to fall. No, actually I lie for
dramatic purposes. In truth it had started to
rain 5 or 10 minutes before I left, but it was
another factor in deciding when to leave. I
didn't have a coat with me, and it seemed wise
to leave while it was only light rain that was
not freezing cold. The bus stop is only a few
minutes walk away from the pub, and a bus
arrived at the bus stop virtually at the same
time as I did.
Sometime between getting on the bus, and
getting off again in Catford, I decided I
needed to have a Chinese takeaway. I'm not
entirely sure why this was. I presume I must
have seen or smelled something, and it lodged
in my brain the same way that a bullet does,
although slightly less destructively. It had
stopped raining when I got off the bus, but I
still rushed home as fast as I comfortably
could - which after three pints of beer seemed
quite fast. As soon as I got in I rushed up to
my PC to order a Chinese takeaway.
As usual, I had to pad the order out to
raise the price high enough for free delivery,
although, as usual, I over did it ! The
strange thing is that when it arrived, and it
arrived very quickly, I found I was not
nearly as hungry as I thought I was. So there
was plenty left over for dinner today plus a
snack. With some hot food inside me I felt
tired, but not exactly sleep. So I didn't
bother reviewing and maybe editing my
photographs of the evening as I sometimes do,
and instead I went to bed with a book.
It all seems very hazy now, but I don't
think I read that much before I decided to put
the book down, and go to sleep. It is possible
that I was asleep before 10pm - which would
have been good if it happened. As far as I can
remember I slept soundly for as much as 5
hours, but it may have been as little as 4
hours. After that I woke up at least once an
hour, and sometime after as little as 30
minutes. I think it was about 6am before I
gave up trying to sleep, and got up feeling
still tired.
I haven't been feeling very good today.
I think it is almost purely because of the
weather. It is grey, wet, sometimes very wet,
and it is also rather cool unless I keep
moving around. Most of it is all in the mind,
but my chest was playing up earlier. It was
aching a bit when I got up, and this afternoon
I had to take a couple of Ibuprofen to calm it
down. It is just the usual "floating rib"
problem. A little earlier this afternoon I
tried to have a snooze, but it is hard to
relax when your chest goes pop-pop-pop every
time you breath in - but strangely not when
breathing out. Sometimes I can partly cure
that by holding my chest in with both hands as
I try and breath in as hard as I can. This
time it just seemed to make my chest more
sore, and it was that, that prompted me to
take the Ibuprofen. Fortunately it's
anti-inflammatory properties seemed to have
worked well again, and I am now comfortable -
at least while I am sitting down typing.
The terrible, soul crushing grey light
that is outside has not really spurred me on
to do much at all today, but apart from so
photo editing, I have done some more of my
great tidy up plan. The first thing I did was
to clean up a little plastic mini chest of
drawers type thing. It is not exactly elegant,
but the drawers are handy for stuff full of
all sorts of stuff and junk. I intend to park
it by the TV when I have cleared up around it.
I may not have done that yet, but I have
cleared up a lot above the TV. I have filled a
whole dustbin liner with old VHS video
cassettes, plus some old audio cassettes, plus
some other junk and detritus. I haven't
actually got any room in the wheelie bin for
that sack of crap, and so I have had to stop
doing any more clearing/cleaning, but the
shelves above/behind the TV are now fairly
neat, with the few remaining VHS cassettes,
and all the DVDs I have bought, acquired, or
made, all lined up fairly neatly.
The pace of my cleaning up seems to be
accelerating. It is probably because I have
become more ruthless in throwing stuff away,
but at the same time, it is the need to
dispose of it that limits how much I can do in
any one week. Although we have to remember
that it can be hard work sometimes, and
sometimes I don't feel like doing hard work !
What is quite amazing to me is that I am
beginning to foresee that in the not so
distant future it might be possible that I
will redecorate the living room (i.e. fresh
paint on the woodchip wallpaper), and maybe
even buy new carpet for it. Somehow doing the
same to the back room is seeming less and less
like science fiction lately.
Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of
my best ever holiday. It was the day when I
went into hospital, and came out again 12 days
later after my quad heart bypass operation. I
might have more to say about it tomorrow if my
manager is sufficiently occupied to not notice
me not doing the companies business !
|
Sunday 30th August
2015
|
08:51 BST
If were not for the fact that it is still
August, and therefore still ought to be high
summer, I could describe yesterday's weather as
very poor, but by recent standards it was not that
bad really. There was some sunshine now and then,
and the temperature was high enough to feel
comfortable, and even a bit warm when doing any
physical activity. At one point one of my
thermometers seemed to be reading 24° C, but I
think that was a fluke, and the more general
temperature from late morning to late afternoon,
was probably more in the region of 21° C.
This morning it is very grey, and it has been
raining, although the roads and pavement are
drying out now. My thermometer says it is 18.5° C,
and that is 2.5° C degrees higher than forecast.
The rest of the forecast agrees that it is very
dull now, and it predicts it will be very dull all
day. There is a weather warning out for heavy rain
from 4pm, but the weather chart doesn't actually
show any rain until later this evening. To one
degree or another, it is not looking like it is
going to be a very nice day ! Tomorrow is August
bank holiday, and by tradition it is supposed to
rain, and that is what the forecast predicts. It
also predicts an almost cold day, just 16° C for
much of the day. Now that is breaking tradition a
little too much !
I include this
picture for the sake of completeness, but it
will not mean much to anyone. It would mean
more if I had taken a "before" picture. This
picture is the result of half an hour, a hour
(?)(was anyone actually timing it ?) of semi
hard, but definitely dusty work. Before the
left hand bookshelf in my living room looked
like this it was a total mess. All sort of old
paperwork, including maybe 10 years worth of
old xmas cards, and birthday cards, were
crammed into any convenient space on the lower
shelves. On the top shelf the books were
laying at all sorts of random angles, and
dusty cobwebs festooned the tops of the books.
It's not perfectly dust free now, but
the worst has gone, and now all but a couple
of books are lined up like soldiers. I had to
make a little extra room by throwing away a
couple of books. One of those books has been
judged the worst science fiction book in the
whole universe. Apparently few actually finish
reading it, and most secondhand book shops
have such huge stocks of it that they turn
away new copies (or so rumour has it). That
book is L. Ron Hubbards " Battlefield
Earth". That was the same L. Ron Hubbard
who invented Scientology as a means to make
extra money - or so they say. It is possible
that my memory of this book, and about the
book, may be completely wrong judging by a
couple of reviews I quickly skimmed through,
but oh well, what a shame, who gives a damn ?
I have no idea what time I went to bed
last night. All I know is that except for
Dad's Army. there was bugger all on TV last
night.....no, I lie, there were a few episodes
of QI on later in the evening, but they failed
to grab my attention, and I resorted to
reading. I do have a vague recollection of
falling asleep quite easily last night, and
until about 4am I seemed to sleep well. At 4am
I woke up feeling strange in a way that I
can't even begin to describe. It was almost as
if I had woken from a completely forgotten
nightmare. It seemed impossible to relax after
that, and I have had very little sleep since.
Since washing my hair, and having a
shower, I feel sort of good mixed with a sort
of restlessness that doesn't seem to have much
accompanying energy. I've already done one
brief job this morning, and maybe I'll do
more, or maybe I won't. I think I want to go
and get some shopping if there are any shops
open this morning. One of the things I want is
another packet (or maybe several packets) of
Dettol Wipes - or something similar. They were
very handy for dusting my bookshelves last
night, and sooner or later I will be doing
something similar to another dusty book shelf.
I think those wipes came from Poundland, or
the 99p shop, and there is a good chance that
they will be open today. (Most shops would be
open on a Sunday in Catford, but possibly not
on the Sunday before a bank holiday Monday).
The one thing I definitely want to do
today is to go to The Coach And Horses pub in
Beckenham. Starting sometime between 5 and 6pm
there is a mini music festival there. I think
4 bands will be doing some short sets, and one
of those bands is "Spangles". It is an all
female band put together for the occasion, and
features Jo Corteen playing lead guitar, Patsi
"Spike" O'Shea on vocals, Michelle Whitestar
on bass, and (presumably) someone on drums -
if there are drums. What could be described as
the stage area is very small, and during the
regular Thursday night open mic session they
use a Cahon
(or Cajon) instead of drums. A Cahon is an
expensively constructed (possibly) wooden box
that is sat on, and the sitter taps or beats
the front of the box between his, or her legs.
|
Saturday 29th August
2015
|
15:43 BST
Excuse the selfie, I was
testing a mobile phone camera !
Yesterday was supposed to be a bright sunny
day...but it wasn't. Well, not all the time. There
were some nice sunny periods, and it was better
than mild, but not exactly warm. I seem to recall
the temperature topped out at around 20° C. I'm
not really sure what I expected of today, but I
think it has been better than that. It has stayed
dry (so far), and there have been a few nice sunny
periods, but even less that yesterday. If anything
the temperature has climbed up a degree or two
warmer than yesterday. According to the BBC's
website, things are about to change. Rain is due
in a few hours, and it could get quite heavy. The
rain might peter out in the early hours of
tomorrow, and it should stay dry, but very dull
and murky through the day until it starts to rain
again in the early evening.
Before I write any more I must
show this picture that I keep forgetting to
show.
It was for one leg of my day out to Eastbourne
last week. The significant thing is the cat
shaped ticket punch that the on-board ticket
inspector used. I've never seen a cat silhouette
punch before.
It was my intention
to go out, probably to the seaside yesterday,
but in the end that didn't happen. There were
two reasons for it. The first was that time
seemed to be sliding past with no control, and
it would have been almost midday before I was
ready to go out. The second reason was
probably caused by the first. As the hours
slipped away we seemed to lose all the
sunshine that was supposed to be tempting me
out. The sun didn't disappear completely, and
it did reappear several times in the
afternoon, and even into late evening, but I
had lost my confidence that it would stay dry.
So I made alternate plans. On a whim, I
phoned my friend Kevin to see if he fancied a
lunchtime pint. He wasn't in, but his wife
answered the phone and said that he had a
hospital appointment in the morning. She said
she would get him to ring me a soon as he was
able. 30 - 40 minutes later he rang, and said
yes he would like, and indeed was going for a
lunchtime pint (and dinner) with his wife in
the Wetherspoons pub.
Half an hour later I was in the pub drinking
the first of three pints of beer. Kevin did
suggest that I stay for more, but I thought
that three was quite sufficient for a
lunchtime. In some respects it was actually
too much. It wasn't quite the normal problem
of the booze making me sleepy, but more to do
with some of the stuff I bought from the 99p
shop when I popped in there on my way home
again.
I bought a couple of things that were
too tempting, and had too high levels of sugar
in them. On the plus side I did buy some very
nice smelling "Original Source" orange and
chocolate shower gel, and some plain orange
shower gel. I tried the orange and chocolate
when I had a shower this morning, and if it
hadn't been soapy I would almost have licked
it off instead of rinsing it off ! I am
anticipating the plain orange will be rather
nice too !
Of course the booze did make me a bit
sleepy. I don't think I had a snooze, but I
was certainly feeling too relaxed to do
anything constructive. I couldn't even bother
to test out my new mini oven. In the laziest
fashion possible, I ordered fish and chips to
be delivered. It was both good and bad that
the fish and chips were so expensive that I
didn't have to pad the order out with much to
qualify for free delivery. On the plus side,
the fish was quite big, and very tasty, and
although they could probably have done with a
bit more frying to make them extra crispy, the
chips were proper chip shop chips, and not
silly little tasteless, so called, French
Fries !
All the sleepiness I felt late afternoon
seemed to have completely evaporated by late
evening, and instead of crashing onto my bed
at, say, 9pm, it was closer to midnight when I
put my book down, and went to sleep. As usual,
I woke up earlier than I wanted to, but not so
early that I could go back to bed again. I
guess I got another 6 hours sleep last night,
and while I don't have to force myself to try
and stay awake (and usually fail) at work, and
can have a snooze almost whenever I fancy it,
6 hours seems quite enough. I guess it is all
in the mind !
This morning I saw my friend Aleemah.
There are no trains to and from London at
Catford Bridge station today (and tomorrow,
and also Monday), so Aleemah had to get the
bus. She had allowed extra time for this, but
her journey went so smoothly that she was
actually earlier than usual. On occasions like
this I meet Aleemah in the pub rather than the
station, and because I can't predict the time
she will arrive with any great accuracy, I was
in the pub a quarter of an hour before her. At
09:20am I was sitting down with two half pints
of beer for breakfast. I must admit I drank
one of the rather fast so I could order
another one when I ordered Aleemah's coffee
and vegetarian breakfast. I must also admit
that it was a full pint I ordered for myself,
and not another half !
Today we watched The Omen IV, and thank
goodness that is the last of that series we
will be watching. I'm not a great fan of
horror movies, but although The Omen movies
are supposed to be horror movies, they are
more like a tedious soap opera. Like a soap
opera, it is possible to miss out whole chunks
of those Omen movies, and not actually miss
anything at all. It's like the story, such as
it is, is self healing, and after a while you
don't realise anything was missing at all.
Thay are four movies I would recommend to
insomniacs - only mildly scary in places, but
still very soporific !
I had some crazy ideas that I might do
something after Aleemah went home, and while I
haven't enacted any of the crazy ideas (like
hoovering the stairs) I have done a couple of
things. The more significant was to try out my
new mini oven to cook some Bratwurst sausages.
While I had tried the oven out very briefly -
literally 30 seconds - today was the forst
time I had let it get up to working
temperature, and as the manual said it would,
it gave off quite a lot of smoke as the
heaters bedded themselves in. It also cooked
those sausages quite well. While eating the
sausages I turned the TV on, and watched one
of the sorts of movies I do like - a 1950's
black and white British movie about a test
pilot having a few difficulties with a new
plane. I enjoyed that even if the scenes with
his wife were a bit sacharine !
I now have a bit more afternoon, and the
evening left to do something or another. At
this very moment I am trying to decide if I am
going to do some more housework, or do nothing
at all. It is a tricky decision because there
is one thing I would like to do, and that is
to tidy up the the top of the left hand book
shelf in the living room. It is covered in
dust, which will be a bit unpleasant, and
heaven knows what little multi legged beasties
are lurking up there, and that could be more
unpleasant still !! However, it is a major
eyesore in my living room, and I ought to do
it someday. Maybe it will happen this
evening....but the more I think about, the
less likely it seems. Oh well, there's no rush
!
|
Friday 28th August
2015
|
09:12 BST
Yesterday was a good improvement over
recent days. There was some rain, and on one
occasion it was at an inconvenient time, but there
were also some nice sunny spells. I think the
temperature hit 21° C at one point, which isn't
particularly warm, but most of the day felt quite
comfortable. The latest forecast for today has
slightly reduced the amount of sunshine, but it is
still looking good, and the temperature should be
similar to yesterday. The trade off for the
slightly reduced sunshine is for tomorrow to be a
little better. It should be mostly dry with the
temperature getting up to 20° C again, but while
it is looking brighter, it seems there won't be
much in the way of sunshine.
I must have been busy in some unrealised way
yesterday because there didn't seem to be much
spare time - except late in the evening. I
described my morning yesterday. In the afternoon I
didn't manage to raise any enthusiasm to do any
more hoovering, but I might have done if the
afternoon hadn't seemed to flash by. I have no
idea where the rest of the hours went to, but I
can account for nearly an hour (maybe only 40
minutes). As I previously suggested I might do, I
paid a second visit to Aldi. I am now the proud
owner of one of these....
Having set up, and given the oven the
briefest of tests, there seemed to be almost no
time left to get myself ready to go out boozing.
Last nights drinking was in The Bricklayers Arms,
which is just the other side of Bromley (from my
perspective). It's about a 35 minute bus ride.
Maybe I am the most impatient person in the world,
but I found that bus ride to take 34 minutes too
long. I often wish I had a personal jet pack to
get to places quicker. A 5 minute flight to work
would almost make it worthwhile trying to stay
working there for many years to come.
The pub is a Shepherd Neame pub, and I am
not a fan of their beers, but they had a couple of
alternatives which were pleasant enough. We all
had a good natter, and one of the topics that came
out, although I have no idea what lead up to it,
was the subject of me learning to play guitar. It
is all very well two guitar players telling me how
easy it is to play guitar, and it is not very easy
at all to try and explain how tone deaf I am. At
the time I completely forgot to even think about
one other good reason why playing guitar would be
difficult for me.
It is more a measure of how I can
ignore/forget about the numbness in my little and
ring fingers on my left hand. It's not exactly
numbness because I can feel with those fingers. I
can even just about feel different textures, but
it is more a tingling sensation instead of what
feeling ought to feel like (if that makes any
sense). In many situations I forget about this
debility. When I first came out of hospital almost
2 years ago, my left hand was so weak I could
hardly do my own trousers up, but now it almost as
strong as my right hand. The upshot is that it
would feel unbearably horrible to hold guitar
strings down on the frets with those two fingers,
and even the next one along has reduced
sensitivity (although I very rarely notice it). No
doubt if I had remembered about my hand, I would
be told there are chords you can play that only
need one finger, but......
It was bright and sunny when I went to the
pub, and I am sure the weather forecast didn't say
anything about rain later in the evening, but it
was definitely raining when I left the pub. It
wasn't a heavy shower, but neither was it just a
light spray. In anticipation of it staying warm
and sunny I didn't wear a coat to the pub. So it
was a bit of shock to have to walk to the bus stop
in the rain. Fortunately the rain did not feel
cold, and for at least half the way I was able to
shelter under trees. The curious thing was that it
sort of felt nice. It felt refreshing, and the
rain seemed to make the trees smell rather nice,
fresh, and green ! The rain seemed to get heavier
once I was on the bus (after no more than a 3 or 4
minute wait), but once we left Bromley it stopped,
and the view through the wet, upstairs, front
windscreen looked rather nice.
I think I only drunk 3 pints in the pub, but
that was enough to make me feel rather insatiably
peckish when I got home (although it doesn't seem
to have needed booze the previous few nights). I
tried to curb my enthusiasm as much as I could,
but it seemed to be a long evening, and a I ended
up munching on several naughty snacks as I waited
for a certain event. I had heard that at 15
minutes past midnight Mars would be visible next
to the full moon. There two problems, or the same
problem from two different sources with this, and
both are light pollution. Even with better
streetlights, there is still lots of light
pollution in, and around London, and the moon
itself was so bright that it was almost dazzling !
This was the moon as seen through the lens of my
new Canon EOS 1200D DSLR camera. One of the
virtues of this camera is that it can store the
images in RAW format, and that means some
control of the exposure after the picture is
taken. The jpeg version of the image looked very
over exposed, and the moon was almost just a
blank disk. That camera is very clever, and can
do some wonderful things, but my Canon SX40
"bridge" camera can sometimes do better by
itself !
I didn't attempt to
stay up to quarter past midnight, but it was
about then when I got into bed.
Unsurprisingly, being as it was so late by my
norms, I fell asleep very quickly, and I slept
quite well, although I would have preferred it
if I had managed to get 8 hours sleep instead
of about 6 hours. I didn't feel too bad when I
got up, although I spent a leisurely hour or
so acclimatising the real world before doing
anything of importance. What I did do was
important. It is possible that today might be
the last sunny day this year (or at least the
last one when I am at home able to make good
use of it). So I washed another double duvet
cover, and hung it on the line. I still have
one more double duvet cover to wash, but
essentially I have now caught up with an
almost two year backlog!
The last duvet cover will just have to
wait, and with so many freshly washed, ready
to use, that last one is not important at all
- although it would be nice to get it done
just for the sake of completion. On the other
hand, it won't be long before it will be
joined by the one currently on my bed.
Once again, time seems to be flying by,
and I want to do something today. I want to go
to the seaside again, and maybe I will, or
maybe I won't. More relevant to right now is
that I haven't even decided where to go if I
do go ! Perhaps I will contemplate that while
I am showering any minute now !!
|
Thursday 27th August
2015
|
12:07 BST
There was some very heavy rain yesterday,
but fortunately most of it fell while I was at
work indoors. It wasn't raining all the time. Most
of the showers occurred around midday, and
fortunately it wasn't raining when I walked to the
station after work, but it did pour down while I
was on the train to Waterloo. I caught the tail
end of that rain as I arrived on the platform at
Waterloo East station, and I had to stay under the
canopy for a few minutes. Then, slowly but surely,
the sun came out. Some of the sky was still almost
black, but in other parts I could see clear blue
sky. Unfortunately that late sunshine did little
for the temperature, and I don't think it rose to
20° C at any time. It felt like quite a cool
evening and night. This morning it was, and still
is, rather cloudy, but there hasn't been any rain,
and just as the forecast promised, I am beginning
to see little shafts of sunlight breaking through
the clouds. It is possible that this afternoon
could be sunny. Maybe it will only be sunny
periods, but that is better than recent days. I'm
seeing 21° C on my thermometer at the moment, and
with luck it might rise a couple of degrees later
this afternoon. Tomorrow is still being forecast
as a very sunny day, but it is forecast to start
quite cool at just 13° C, and only rise to 20° C
at best.
I felt quite miserable at work yesterday.
Mostly it was the dull weather, but some of it was
assorted pains mostly in the morning. One of the
worst pains, not by it's intensity, but more by
resemblance to forthcoming toothache, was where I
managed to pierce my gum with a toothpick. It was
only a momentary pain, but it did draw blood, and
by the taste of it, more than just an odd drip.
For many hours afterwards it felt tender and
tingly like the start of toothache - the sort of
toothache caused by receding gums exposing the
porous parts of the teeth that connect to the
nerve. If I worry it, it still feels a little
tender, but that is to be expected of any wound.
The other pains were my usual "floating rib"
pains. I have to admit they were surprisingly mild
for such a cold and wet day, but even a mild
discomfort can be annoying after a long
while...and more so when you are feeling generally
miserable....and impatient to go home to start a
very long, 5 day, bank holiday weekend !
It was definitely cheery when the sun came
out while I waited for my train at Waterloo East.
The sunshine continued, and that made me make up
my mind about where I was going to do some
shopping. I wanted to go to Aldi, but I was
feeling rather listless, and it would have been
easier to go home via Tesco. Somehow the sunshine
gave me the energy, and enthusiasm to decide to go
straight home, and then go out again to Aldi. It
was sort of nice walking there with the bright
sunshine on my back, but all I could see in front
of me was a black sky. I did wonder if I was being
a bit too brave going there in my shirtsleeves.
I had some very mixed thoughts while I was
in Aldi. I wanted to buy relatively healthy stuff,
but I also wanted something nice to cheer myself
up. I did buy a lot of salad stuff, and some other
slightly healthy stuff, but I also bough a couple
of curry ready meals. I ended up eating both,
although in my defence, I only ate less than half
the rice. So I probably got away with an overdose
of fat and salt, but only a moderate dose of
carbohydrate. The only problem is that it didn't
cheer me up as much as it might have done if
miracles actually worked !
I had to fall back on plan B, and that was
to have a couple of very large whiskies. I'm not
sure if they worked either, but they probably
helped me get a fairly good sleep. I woke up a few
times in the night, but I did manage to sleep
right through when my alarm would have woken me if
I was going to work today. That in itself is a
miracle. I've been waking up as much as half an
hour early for some time now, but this morning it
was closer to half an hour late. I got up for a
bit then, but went back to bed. Now I'm not sure
how much I slept then. I thought I was awake most
of the time, but a couple of hours seemed to have
passed when I decided to get up again (maybe even
three - I haven't been watching the clock this
morning).
This morning I have been fairly productive.
Maybe more productive than I intended to be. The
first thing I did was to repair my shower. It only
had a little problem, and that was that the end of
the tubing had split at the shower head. It was
only a cheap and cheerful thing from
Poundstretcher than I had bodged together ages
ago. I made a temporary repair with loads of
gaffer (duct) tape, and I could have nursed that
along for some time yet, but I had amassed the
bits to do a repair. Poundstretcher no longer sell
the cheap and cheerful plastic shower attachments,
but they do sell a chromed plastic version that is
still cheap and tacky, but doesn't look like it -
yet ! The only trouble with that replacement is
that it is meant to be plumbed in instead of being
attached to a tap. Thankfully I was able to
acquire what should be a cable gland used for
making waterproof entry points for electrical
cables into connections boxes etc. One end had the
perfect screw thread for the gland on the new
shower hose, and the other had a nice compressed
rubber seal for the original hose. A bit of added
ptfe tape, and the job was done, and it was
perfectly watertight.
To test the new shower head, and it's hose,
I did some laundry. I washed three short sleeved
shirts, a heavy duty t-shirt, and a some
underpants. After I hung that lot up to dry, and
while still wearing the rubber gloves I had used
to do the washing, I decided to have a quick
look through a couple of very dusty boxes of old
leaflets and stuff. I extracted about three
leaflets, and threw the rest away. That's another
small corner of my back room that is now clear !
It is a shame I didn't do that yesterday before
the wheelie bin was emptied this morning, or there
would be room for even more old trash in there
today.
I can only imagine that all the effort
required for doing laundry, and tossing out boxes
of old paperwork and leaflets, in conjunction with
my (presumed) high blood pressure, must have
caused some sort of brain seizure. It is the only
thing that can explain why I then went on to
hoover the bottom of the stairs, plus bit of the
front room, the newly exposed bit of back room, a
bit of the hallway, and some cobwebs near the
front door.
I can almost imagine doing a bit more
hoovering today (must be the end of the world
approaching), but there could be other things I
want to do as well. Top of the list must be to
have my morning shower half a day late, and
probably wash my hair too (another good test of
the new shower head). I'm also contemplating going
to Aldi again. One of their "Thursday Specials" is
an infra red mini grill/oven. I think I could make
good use of one of those - even if it is only to
brown the crust of a twice a year steak pie treat
! I think it said they were only £19.99, and while
that represents as much as 5 pints of beer, it
won't break the bank if it is under used.....but
then again, in the middle of winter, when hot food
is a necessity, it may get a lot of use.
Whatever I do will have to be done quick
though. It's Thursday, and that means booze night.
Tonight we are drinking in The Bricklayers Arms in
Bromley. I may not have found the enthusiasm to go
there after work, but I am not at work, and it is
easy to get there by bus from here (and not at all
easy to get to if I was travelling from Waterloo).
The only big decision to make is how long to stay
there. I could stay out late tonight, and get very
drunk, but I want to try and go out tomorrow
(maybe to the seaside), and that dictates that I
shouldn't get too carried away tonight !
|
Wednesday 26th August
2015
|
08:19 BST
Yesterday was not as wet as I think I
thought it would be. As I think I've said before,
since I don't go outside to have a smoke once an
hour, I often don't pay as much attention to the
weather outside as I used to, and yesterday is no
exception. I seem to recall one torrential
downpour (although maybe not as torrential as many
of the downpours the previous day), but other than
that all I remember is it being grey and dull. It
was mostly dry when I left work to go home, but it
did try and rain semi-hard for a minute or two as
I left Catford Bridge station to walk home. For
all that it was not that cool. I guess 17° C could
be described as tepid. It started similarly tepid
this morning. The road was quite wet from earlier
rain as I walked to the station in the grey gloom.
There were a few spits of rain as I walked, but
not enough to justify doing up my rain coat, and
putting up the hood. On the way to Waterloo there
was some weak sunshine, and although partly
obscured, the sun came out to greet us as we got
off the train at Waterloo East station. That may
have been the last we will see of the sun this
morning. More rain is forecast for this morning,
and also for the evening, but mid afternoon, and
while I am going home, is supposed to be dry, and
while it may not be sunny, it is supposed to be
bright. Tomorrow, the first day of my extended
bank holiday weekend, is still not looking too
good, but Friday is still looking promising.
I felt no inspiration to do much work
yesterday. I did a little bit of this, and a
little bit of that, and a whole lot of not much at
all. So it was nice to go home...well maybe not so
much nice, but a relief. The only trouble was that
I felt very much the same after I got home. There
wasn't really anything I was intending to do
except to try and eat as sparingly as I could. I
guess I achieved that in as much as I did eat as
sparingly as I could, except it was not nearly as
sparingly as I wanted to. Far from it, in fact !
I probably, if not certainly, allowed the
gloomy weather to get to me - more so because it
really ought to be still summer, and not slipping
to mid autumn - which is how it feels sometimes.
Another problem is that getting my chest wet seems
to have had a double whammied effect. The cold and
damp is not doing the site of my operation any
favours. Like an injury, it does sometimes get a
bit cranky in this weather, but there is worse.
Last night I seemed to have a tickly throat, and I
was coughing a lot sometimes. Most of the time
that was no problem, and it was no more than a
minor itch compared to some coughs I have had, but
when laying on my side, with my ribs already going
crunch and pop, it does start to hurt as it causes
all sorts of clicks and pops and creaks and groans
from my ribs, ligaments, and scar tissue etc.
It didn't seem to affect my sleep, which was
probably about average, neither good, nor bad, but
my chest felt very sore when I got up this
morning. Doing stuff like brushing my hair, or any
arm waving type movements, were really quite
uncomfortable. Soon after getting up I took a
couple of Ibuprofen tablets, and that has calmed
things down a lot, but my chest is still sore -
although it does depend on the sort of movements I
make. Usually walking is good to stir up my ribs,
and get them to settle down in the right places,
but on one occasion it actually made things worse.
As I walked across the concourse of Waterloo
station, but oddly enough nowhere else, I could
feel my chest clicking and popping, and unusually
it felt quite sore as it was doing so.
My main task at work today is to build some
little test boxes. They are no more than a box
with a selection of sockets fitted to it. The
internal wiring is no problem, but cutting the
holes for the sockets, particularly the two that
are rectangular, means lots of filing, and when I
made the prototype on Monday, all that filing made
my chest hurt a bit. I can imagine that doing the
same today could be very uncomfortable. Maybe I
should do something else today - like being a lazy
bastard at a professional level !
After work I need to get some shopping. That
leads to a difficult decision. Should I take the
easy way out and shop at the more expensive Tesco,
which also seems to have more temptations for food
that I should be avoiding, or should I double (or
treble ?) the length of the walk home, and get
that shopping in Aldi ? I hope I feel OK when I
get back to Catford because I would like to go in
Aldi if I can. I haven't been there for a
fortnight, and I fear I may be missing out on some
sort of bargains. I suspect shopping will be the
only thing I'll do tonight. I'll have plenty of
time to do anything I need to do tomorrow while I
am off work, and the weather is looking like it is
going to be stay at home weather !
|
Tuesday 25th August
2015
|
07:49 BST
I think the picture above gives a pretty
good impression of what much of yesterday was
like. There were few times when it wasn't raining.
Even when it wasn't raining it almost was ! On
many occasions it was a torrential downpour, and
there was at least one thunderclap, but there was
also one strange moment when the sun came out for
less than 30 seconds (although it was very weak,
hazy sunshine). Somehow the temperature got up to
24 or 25° C, or at least I think it did, but it
cooled off rather quickly during the evening. It
was just 12° C when I got up this morning, but the
weather had completely changed.
It won't last long, but for now it is a
bright sunny, and maybe slightly chilly morning.
It will slowly warm up, but only to 16 to 18° C
until the rain starts again sometime early
afternoon when the temperature will drop a good
few degrees again. The rain should stop again this
evening, but way too late to keep me dry when I
leave work. The rain is supposed to start again
near midnight, and it could be quite heavy. Not
only that, but it is forecast to keep going all
tomorrow - although curiously, the icons on the
BBC website suggest there will be some sunshine
during the heavy rain, and thundery showers !
I felt very variable yesterday. Sometimes I
felt semi-OK, and at other times, like after I had
finished some heavy duty filing of the
metal/plastic working type, I felt a bit rough.
Overriding everything was a deep gloominess in
tune with the gloomy weather. That gloominess was
mostly while I was at work, but it most certainly
affected me in the evening in a way that I was
barely conscious of from time to time.
After seeing some really heavy showers while
I was in work, it seemed quite good that it was
hardly raining at all when I left work. It was
only a brief interlude, and by the time I got to
the main road I was being sprinkled by a light
shower. So I decided to get a bus to the station.
Two stops later and that light shower had turned
into a torrential downpour. It was quite
exhilarating to rush from the bus stop to the
shelter of the station, and it was only later that
I considered just how wet I was. It was under the
shelter of the station canopy that I took the top
picture of the downpour (and approximately the
same place, but different angle, where I took the
picture of the clear sky and sunshine this
morning).
I was pretty damp when I got home again, and
yet it didn't feel too bothersome - at least to
the extent that I did a few preparations in the
kitchen before going up to my room to get into dry
clothes. Those kitchen preparation were the start
of an evening where I ended up eating too much. I
think it was a delayed reaction, or perhaps a
continued reaction to the dull and gloomy weather.
I may have got away with just 338 calories for
breakfast, but I more than made up for that in the
evening. I did have a sensible salad with some
skinless chicken slices in it, but I also ate
several bags of evil snack food, some peanuts, and
also some reheated ready-cooked cocktail sausages
with melted cheese on top. I had that latter
abomination soon after I got home. Sadly enough,
it wasn't even that nice !
My plans to get an early night went all
wrong when I decided that I just had to wash my
hair. Maybe I should have dug out my hairdryer
and, assuming it still works, used that to speed
up drying my hair. I didn't, and so I had to wait
around watching TV until, at 9pm, my hair was just
about dry enough to go to bed. It was at least
9.30pm before I got to sleep, but apart from
waking up half an hour before I wanted to, I
probably slept quite well for a change.
This morning I feel quite variable again. My
chest feels a bit clicky, but it doesn't seem to
be aching. That is sort of surprising considering
it got very cold and wet several times yesterday.
A bigger annoyance is that the junk I ate on
Sunday, and probably all the crap I ate last
night, gave me a mild stomach upset this morning.
I wasn't 100% sure that I had finished with visits
to the toilet before I set off to come to work.
Evidently I had, and I feel comfortable now. In
fact, while I sit here at my work PC, I do feel
unusually comfortable.
Once again, I have tried to start the day
with a minimal breakfast. I bought two more pots
of ready mixed salad from Sainsbury's. One was
tomato and mozzarella, and contained 164 calories,
and the other was Pomardorino tomato, and it only
contained 132 calories. Both had minimal amounts
of sugars and fats, although the salt content was
probably a little high. In theory I could make
something similar for my evening meal, and there
is a good chance that I will, but I can't stop
thinking about the packet of Bratwurst sausages in
the fridge that are going to have to be used
sooner or later...
|
Monday 24th August
2015
|
07:51 BST
The change from the glories of last
Saturday to yesterday were dramatic, but not quite
as dramatic as the weather forecast seemed to
suggest. The morning was lightly overcast, but
still warm and dry. Then, about an hour later than
expected, around midday, the rain started. For a
while it was heavy, but most of the time it was
light-ish, and by 3pm it was just about all over.
Then, to my surprise, there was some sunshine -
not a lot, but it was still very welcome.
This was the view at, if I recall correctly,
about 12.45pm yesterday. It is fairly bright, but
it is very different to the photos I took last
Saturday ! I'm unsure how warm it was yesterday,
but I could take a guess that it was in the region
of 24 - 25° C, and the cloud kept the warmth in
making for a warm night. This morning, when I got
up a whole hour before sunrise (!), it was at
least tepid, and maybe slightly warm 15° C. It was
also rather wet outside, but the rain comes and
goes. It wasn't raining beyond a few drops now and
then when I took this picture of a very crimson
sunrise.
The forecast for today does not make for
good reading ! To one degree or another, it is
going to rain all day today, and the top
temperature is only going to be 16° C. Much of the
rain may be light to very light, but some of it
could be heavy enough to trigger some thunder and
lightning. In among all that gloom there is a
small ray of hope. At 3pm, although I hope it is
an hour later, a few rays of sunshine may peep
through the clouds. Perhaps we will get a nice
rainbow. The rest of the week may be a little
better than today, but the core story is the same
- rain ! I am keeping my fingers crossed that
there will be an unforeseen amazing improvement in
the weather for Thursday and Friday when I have
booked days off work. To get a day as good as last
Saturday would be a miracle, but I'd settle for
dry with sunny periods, and the temperature up
around 25° C - that's not much to ask for on an
August day is it ?
Earlsfield at approx 7.20am this morning looking
very damp during a brief lull in the light
drizzly rain.
I didn't get around to saying that I felt
really quite good yesterday morning. I didn't seem
to have any bothersome aches or pains - which was
nice a surprise after so much travelling and a bit
of walking - although I did have some of the usual
low level creaks and groans from assorted bits of
my body. One of the best feelings was a feeling
that my stomach felt tighter, even slightly
smaller, and maybe to a limited degree it was. To
a greater degree it was largely illusion. It
didn't make washing a few shirts and some
underwear any easier, and it didn't make my walk
to the shops any easier - or did it ?
Maybe I did feel a sort of positive
difference when I walked to the shops, but it is
hard to describe what that difference was. Maybe
it was just a gap between how I thought I ought to
feel after walking further than I am currently
accustomed to on the Saturday, to how I actually
felt. I think it may have felt like it needed less
effort to walk to the shops than usual. All I know
is that by the end of yesterday I was regretting
not being able to control my eating. I didn't go
mad, and I didn't have anything with notable
amounts of sugar in it, but I ate a lot of cold
fried chicken, and other assorted stuff. I'm not
sure what was the worse thing, but I would hazard
a guess it was the several small packets of spicy
tomato flavour Cheetos that I bought from the
Poundshop. They are puffed up, and incredibly
light, and yet they almost certainly pack in all
sorts of undesirables - as can be expected from
any American snack food. I didn't dare look at the
ingredients or any other information on the
packets because I didn't want to scare myself
silly !
It is also possibly regrettable that apart
from the morning laundry, and shopping trip, I
didn't really do anything useful yesterday. I
wasn't exactly bored, but being idle meant I had
more time to think about feeling like eating. Not
only that, but it meant I slept badly. Well that's
nothing new as such, but I have slept fairly well
on a few recent nights. I got in bed a bit later
than intended, and initially I couldn't sleep.
Then when I did get to sleep I woke up again about
4 hours later with my pillow wet with sweat. It
was a warmish night, but I think that sweat was
something else - probably medical in a negative
sort of way.
This morning I got up feeling no worse, or
no better than what seems to pass as average these
days. I was up before 5am, but I spent some time
at my PC as I got used to being an upright walking
ape. For a small period of time I felt passably OK
until I brushed my teeth. For some reason I used
my big toothbrush (I usually use a smaller one in
the morning), and after some vigorous tooth
scrubbing I managed to get toothpaste at the back
of my throat, and I gagged. I came very close to
throwing up. That would not have been pleasant,
but all the dry heaving did have a most unpleasant
effect on my "floating ribs". It made my chest
feel quite sore, and it wasn't until I was doing a
fairly fast walk from the station to work that I
threw off most of the aching.
Now I am here at work, out of the rain, and
sitting mostly quietly, I don't feel too bad apart
from a mild, tired feeling headache. In an ideal
world I would be sitting in a big old, horsehair
stuffed, knackered, but incredibly comfortable,
armchair, and having a snooze. I am referring to
an ancient armchair that used to be at my mums
house over 30 years ago. Heaven knows what may
have been living inside it, but it was more
comfortable than any armchair I have ever sat in
since ! In an attempt to recover some of the
energy I had last Saturday, I have eaten sparsely
for breakfast. All I had was two ready made
Sainsbury's salads. One was a "Greek" salad, and
the other was a tomato and mozzarella salad. One
pot had 164 calories, and the other 174 calories.
Both had fairly small amounts of sugar and other
stuff like that.
I'll see if I can tame my enthusiasm for
eating when I get from work today, but under a
gloomy and depressing grey sky it is not going to
be easy. It is probably lucky that I don't have
anything too contentious in the fridge or freezer,
but I do have some peanuts in the cupboard. I
wonder if I can try and forget they are there
before I get home ? I have no plans for tonight
beyond trying to get to sleep fairly early (and
then trying to sleep through the night). Maybe
I'll go to bed extra early with something to read,
and then read until I feel my eyelids drooping.
|
Sunday 23rd August
2015
|
09:00 BST
Yesterday was a perfect summers day ! The
sky was a brilliant blue, the sun was shining, and
the temperature was a delicious 30° C. Today will
not be so good. It was a warm night, and the
temperature now is a very pleasant 22° C, but the
sky is more grey than blue. Occasionally the sun
breaks through for a minute or two, but rain is
forecast, and it could start in as little as a
couple of hours time. By mid afternoon the
temperature may be 25° C, and that sort of
temperature could turn a shower into a
thunderstorm. One school of thought, according to
those ever wacky weather forecasters, is that the
band of rain will have passed us by before it is
warm enough to cook up a thunderstorm. Tomorrow is
still looking quite grim - cold and wet ! That
could continue for quite a few days, and ruin the
days off I have booked this coming Thursday
and Friday.
Hopefully yesterday will not have been the
last summer day this year, but if it was I can at
least say I made good use of it. First thing in
the morning I washed another duvet cover, and hung
it on the washing line to dry in the sunshine, and
spiders webs ! Those bloody spiders are a
nuisance. I really must cut back the overhanging
tree branches, well twigs really, that they drop
down from. After doing battle with the hand
laundry, and repelling the arachnid invasion, I
set about planning a day out.
I wanted to go to Eastbourne, but it is a
very tedious journey, and seemed stupidly
expensive on the train. Then I had a brainwave (or
brainstorm). I decided to go to Hastings, and then
if I felt up to it, I could, and did catch another
train to Eastbourne. There is one problem with
Eastbourne, or at least I thought there was. That
problem was that there didn't seem to be any other
station I could walk to from Eastbourne station.
That may have been true yesterday because I am out
of practice in walking long distances, but upon
consulting a map, I found that I had actually
walked over a third, maybe getting on towards half
the way to Pevensey station. That station is not
on this map of where I walked yesterday.
I walked an anti-clockwise route starting at the
railway station.
Here's some sights along the way. Clicking on
any of these small pictures opens up a high
resolution version in a new browser tab (or new
page in older browsers).
Buskers in Eastbourne town
|
pier
|
Many of the lamp posts on the pier have
this lovely lions head motif.
|
An assortment of boats
|
I think this might be Vladimir Putin
fishing on the shingly beach at
Eastbourne
|
In the past England had a very robust
answer to illegal immigrants !
|
A rather stupid looking road train.
|
A rather splendid looking church in the
back streets between the seafront and
the station.
|
Look closely, maybe clicking on the picture for
a much bigger view, and you'll see this
thermometer, located on Eastbourne station, is
saying 28.5° C in the shade at about 4pm.
It was a very long journey getting to
Eastbourne, and an even longer journey coming
back. First of all there was a signal failure
in the Polegate, Sussex area, that brought all
the trains at Eastbourne to a standstill. Once
that was fixed there was a follow on problem -
a points failure meant nothing could get into,
or out of Eastbourne station (which is a
terminus station). I had to wait 40 - 50
minutes, half on the platform, and half on a
stationary train before we set off. It was a
nice brisk journey to St Leonards Warrior
Square station where I had to change for a
less brisk train back to Sevenoaks. Some
trains call at more intermediate stations, and
some less. I got the one that stops at more !
From Sevenoaks the only choice is the stopping
train all the way back to Catford.
It must have been over a 3 hour journey
back to Catford, and it was very tedious ! The
good thing was that I didn't feel too
knackered when I got back. Even my feet were
only slightly sore. I had taken a gamble that
my cheap and nasty slip on Chinese made white
plimsolls, that seem to be comfortable for a
day at work, would also be fairly good on a
longer walk - and they were (although I'm not
sure how they would hold up if I ever get the
stamina back to walk 7, or even 10 miles).
The very strangest thing was that I
didn't feel particularly hungry when I got
back. I was very aware that I had not eaten
anything at all since the previous evening,
but I felt no urgency to eat again. That
allowed me to treat myself to a take away of
peri-peri grilled chicken. Of course I ruined
that a bit by eating a portion of horrible
American style "French fries" with it, but
that is all I ate before having some chicken
wings for breakfast this morning.
I expected to be in bed very early after
getting home yesterday, but I had to wait
until almost 9pm (I think it was actually
8.45pm) until my breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper
was delivered, and then after that I sat down
and started reviewing and editing the pictures
I had taken. I think it was gone 11pm when I
finally got onto my bed. It didn't take long
to fall asleep, and I slept until 3am before
briefly getting up to turn the fan off that
had kept me cooler when I first went to bed,
but was starting to chill me a bit. As usual,
I didn't sleep all that well after 3am, but I
managed a few more hours (maybe).
I did have plans to wash one of the
remaining two unwashed double duvet covers
today, but I don't think the weather is
favourable to it. However I have washed three
short sleeved shirts, and some underwear, and
later on I may wash a few small hand towels.
Before the rain starts, which is now looking
quite soon, I want to do a bit of shopping,
and maybe I'll also sort out another big
dustbin bag of crap from my back room - bits
of which are starting to look almost civilised
now. In another century or two it may even be
usable as a dining room again !
|
Saturday 22nd August
2015
|
07:30 BST
I don't think the temperature hit the
forecast 25° C yesterday, although my office did
hit 27.5° C in the afternoon. Strangely enough, it
didn't seem to feel that warm yesterday. It wasn't
that I was just not moving around much at work,
but even when I was going home, and, for instance,
doing a fair paced walk to the station, I never
seemed to feel too warm. Maybe the breeze made it
feel fresher, but it was only a very mild breeze.
It was warm enough to leave my bedroom window open
all night, and I think I slept mostly uncovered
all night. It is just 16° C now, but apart from
some high wispy clouds, the sky is blue, and the
forecast for 29° C, and brilliant sunshine, seems
like it is going to come true. Thankfully, the
forecast for tomorrow has improved. There will be
more cloud about, but we should still get some
nice sunshine, and the temperature should rise to
a very pleasant 25° C. Monday is looking grim !
Just 18° C and probably quite wet !
As the day slowly limped through the hours I
began to feel a little more alive at work.
In the morning I had my 1-to-1 with my manager.
It's a relatively new thing at work that we all
have, and I think it is for the benefit of my
manager. Since he was elevated to official
manager, instead of just the head, or lead person,
of development, he has had to become more
managerial, and I don't think he really likes it.
Things were far more informal before, and he was
actually part of the team despite having notional
managerial duties. Now he needs these 1-to-1's to
understand what is going on, and to feel more
grounded. So I avoided all the confrontational
issues, and we had a nice chat about technical
stuff which I think we both enjoyed.
Although I was really looking forward to
getting home, and really looking forward to today,
I still didn't seem to be able to raise the energy
and enthusiasm to make going home anything more
than the traditional wasted hour of my life !
However, when I got back to Catford I didn't feel
knackered, and I enjoyed doing a little careful
shopping in Tesco. Once again it seemed to be
another quite cheap visit there. It's not that
their prices have dropped, oh no, but that I
didn't buy that much. I did get a till ticket
saying that I had saved a whole 87p compared to if
I had bought the same items from other
supermarkets that don't actually exist in Catford.
There are 4 supermarkets in Catford - Tesco, Aldi,
Lidl, and Iceland - and Tesco don't compare their
prices with any of them. They compare them with
Sainsbury's - a bus ride away in Lewisham,
Morrisons - a longer bus ride away in Beckenham,
and Waitrose - also in Beckenham (I think). There
is a Co-Op a short bus ride away in Bellingham,
and I thought that should be quite cheap, but I am
told it has pretensions of being upmarket, and
surprisingly expensive !
Having done my careful shopping in Tesco I
went straight home and proceeded to tuck into two
of the worst things I bought - tortilla chips and
a small pot of seafood sandwich filler used
as a sort of dip. Then I had a more formal
bit of dinner - sort of (well it was eaten in
front of the TV instead of the PC !). They are
terribly naughty, but I bought a half price bag of
hot assorted chicken bits flavoured with some sort
of barbecue like creosote. In theory that was
going to be the last thing I ate yesterday, but of
course that never happened.
One reason why it didn't happen is that I
seemed to find the energy, and enthusiasm to hand
wash four short sleeved work shirts. It felt good
to do that, but it also gave me an appetite. So I
ate the two packs of half price sandwiches I was
going to eat today. I didn't do anything of any
note after that, and at 10pm I got in bed,
or to be more accurate, I got on my
bed. As usual, I didn't think it would happen, but
with 5 minutes I was fast asleep. More surprising
is that I seemed to sleep unusually well. I think
I woke at the traditional annoying time of 3am,
but this time I was asleep again after a few
minutes. I eventually woke again at just before
6.30am. That seemed a fair time to get up.
It took the usual half hour for my body to
start working in "day mode", but once it did I
tackled two of the things I had hoped to do today.
The first was to hand wash another double duvet
cover, and the second was to go out in the garden
wielding a broom to sweep all the huge spiders,
and their gigantic webs from the washing line (and
any other place where I was liable to bump into
one). With the line, and it's surroundings clear,
I hung out the double duvet cover to bake dry in
today's sunshine. On reflection, I am not sure why
I didn't throw the duvet cover away. One side of
it is sateen, and it has seen far better days. It
is bobbly, fluffy, and.....well, just generally
very worn in the way that cheap and nasty sateen
goes after a while. However, it is fine for me to
use in the privacy of my own room at least one
more time.
The next thing on the agenda is to wash me
and my hair, and then decide what I am going to do
today. I definitely want to go out in the sun, and
I think I want to challenge myself to try and walk
a bit further than I have done for ages now. Maybe
4 to 5 miles. A walk by the sea would be nice, but
I fear the trains will be busy, and I am not yet
sure what routes are running, and which have rail
replacement buses because of engineering work.
Worst of all is that the beaches will probably be
full of screaming idiots ! Oh well, time to get
the maps, and online railway route planner
humming!
I can't decide which of these two pictures is
nicest of the fluffy clouds yesterday evening.
The top picture was taken with my little Nikon
6300D camera, and the lower just using the
camera in my mobile phone a few seconds later.
Both have been "tweaked" a bit, but I think that
the mobile phone picture was probably the best
to start with. This was at about 7pm looking to
the west.
|
Friday 21st August
2015
|
08:12 BST
It wasn't as grey as it could have been
yesterday. I can't recall there being any
sunshine, but the afternoon was sort of bright,
and at least the temperature was comfortable -
although I am not sure what that temperature
actually was. I also don't know what it cooled
down to by this morning, but I would guess the
temperature was in the region of 15° C when I
walked to the station. Unfortunately it has been a
very dull start to the day, and it seems quite
humid too. All that should change soon. In fact
the genesis of that change can now be seen. The
clouds are breaking up, and I can now see little
bits of blue sky. The forecast says that it will
become increasingly sunny, and it will warm up a
bit too. We may see 25° C if we are lucky. All
this is a rehearsal for tomorrow when brilliant
hot sunshine is forecast for most of the day (it
might fizzle out before sunset), and the
temperature could soar to 29° C ! Sunday was
forecast to be very wet, but the latest forecast
suggests the worst won't happen until Monday, and
Sunday, while not perfect, could be a pleasant
day.
I don't know if it is anything to do with
the changing weather, or if it is something
completely different, but I failed to regain any
"zing" yesterday. I don't think that was any time
when I was in any sort of annoying discomfort, but
I definitely couldn't raise much enthusiasm for
anything - not even for the Thursday night, after
work, drink. Of course I looked forward to it, but
not with the enthusiasm I should have. I was
thinking of popping into Poundland to pick up a
few bits and pieces, such as kitchen paper, before
going to The Catford Constitutional Club, but I
couldn't be bothered to do that.
I think one of the things that was getting
me down was that I wanted to stick to a plan of
having no more than three pints of beer. It was
probably one of those days where it would have
been ice to be able to throw caution to the wind,
and have a good drink, but I stuck to my boring
plan, and just had the three pints - consisting of
two half pints, and two whole pints. One of those
half pints was a weird pale ale that was infused
with lime (juice). It was pleasantly weird, but I
think a half pint was a suitable quantity of it.
The end of a full pint might have started to get
unpleasant. Another interesting beer was call
"Will You Marry Me" - which is a very strange name
for a beer ! It was described as a strawberry
blonde beer, and it was refreshingly light, and
did indeed have a hint of strawberries in it.
After my three pints I went straight home. I
did my best to eat lightly, and indeed I had two
bowls of salad - one with added ham, and the other
just as it came. The latter did have some cubes of
mozzarella cheese, and a basil dressing in it. If
I hadn't had the beer I may have been able to get
away with just that, but the beer gave me the
munchies, and I had other "bad" stuff. The worst
was a whole small packet (very small once the
packaging was stripped away) of goats cheese and
black pepper crackers.
I don't know whether to blame the crackers
or the beer, but after almost 6 hours of seemingly
good sleep, I woke up at 3am feeling a bit
strange, and unable to get back to sleep properly.
It was one of those occasions where if I didn't
have to get up for work, I would have got up for a
couple of hours at 3am, and then gone back to bed
- a strategy that sometimes works to get a couple
of extra hours of sleep. I don't know how long I
had been asleep when I woke up at about 4.45am,
and decided I couldn't be bothered to fight to
stay asleep any more.
This morning I feel a bit like I did
yesterday, and that is neither good nor bad. The
start and end walking parts of my journey to work
I did at a sedate pace....well, maybe not
"sedate", but I couldn't find the enthusiasm, or
energy to rush. The middle bit of walking, the mad
dash from Waterloo East to Waterloo stations, was
done at a slightly restrained mad dash, but it's a
case of "keep up or die", and so it has to be done
as fast as feasible ! Now I am at work I don't
feel exactly comfortable. I can't describe why,
but I feel a little edgy. Some of it is that "I
can't wait for the day to be over so the weekend
can start" sort of feeling, and some is something
I can't define.
Maybe it is going to be a miserable day at work,
or maybe it will turn out OK, and if the sun comes
out properly today, it could turn out OK, but at
least I am off to a healthy start...if a still
twitching corpse can be healthy !
Now which should I have for breakfast ?
Which one did I have for breakfast ?? I
couldn't decide which to have, and I don't think I
intended to. I had both ! They were both carrot
free, and so low in sugars, and the two combined
had less calories than some sandwiches I might
have bought (and I would usually eat two packs of
sandwiches !). I think the two combined came to
just under 400 calories. Of course it could be
that stuffing myself with all that green fibre is
the reason for a very mild stomach ache like ache
that I am now suffering from. It's a bit of mild
bloat feeling, but a different sort of bloat to a
full stomach. It's like so many odd aches and
pains these days, it is hard to describe or define
just why it should feel almost, but not quite,
ignorably uncomfortable.
Oh well, once the working day is over I am
free to do whatever I fancy. If I want to stay up
half the night I can because I don't have to go to
work in the morning, but I don't want to do that.
What I want to do is to get up bright and early
feeling good enough to make use of the bright
sunshine. I haven't checked to see what the
possibilities of getting to the seaside are
tomorrow, but if there are no engineering works
going on (unlikely), and no "rail replacement
buses" (ugh !), then I hope to feel good enough to
spend a couple of hours at the seaside, and maybe
do a couple of miles of walking. Alternatively,
but maybe in addition, it would be nice to wash
another duvet cover (or maybe even two), and get
them hanging in the sunshine to dry. There is only
one difficulty in using the washing line at the
moment - I haven't got a flamethrower ! All I can
see when I look out my kitchen window at the
garden is huge spiders webs everywhere. Some of
them are big enough to catch Boeing 747s !!!!
|
Thursday 20th August
2015
|
08:12 BST
The forecast for yesterday turned out to be
wrong in the best way. Until about 7pm the day was
bright, and far more frequently sunny than even
the most doubly optimistic interpretation of the
weather forecast. By 6pm, when it was supposed to
be raining, it was getting overcast, and the first
rain began to fall around 7pm. The forecast only
allowed for an hour or two of rain, but there
seemed to be good evidence that it must have
rained through most of the night. This morning the
roads were very wet, but there were a few spots
that were starting to dry out. It looks as if the
rain might have stopped a little later here in
Earlsfield. It was a comfortable 22° C when I got
home from work yesterday, and this morning is a
cooler 17° C. Unfortunately, today is forecast to
be a very grey day, and when I look out my office
window it feels like that forecast is spot on. Of
course things could change during the day, but I
don't hold out much hope that we will see much, if
indeed any, sunshine today. At least the
temperature will be reasonable - at least 20° C.
The future looks better. Saturday was forecast to
be warm and sunny, and now it is looking like it
could even be loitering on the fringes of hot with
oodles of sunshine. it will probably snow !
Yesterday was an odd day. While I was at
work I didn't feel bad, but I was some way short
of feeling good - on average. At any instant I
might have felt quite good or quite bad. Going
home was not the joy it could have been, but it
had it's moments. It felt good to be alive after
deliberately not getting a bus to the station, and
then finding the lift was out of order at the
station. Even at my very fittest, back in the days
when I could walk 10 miles almost non stop, I
hated going up the three flights of stairs to the
platform at Earlsfield station. So to walk all the
way to the station, then climb those bloody stairs
at a quite reasonable pace, and then walk to the
far end of the platform at a brisk pace, and still
have enough oxygen in my blood to not turn purple,
was a great achievement I would prefer not to have
to achieve again !
When I arrived back in Catford I went
straight to Tesco where I spent not much money at
all ! There were only three things I shouldn't
have bought. They were two reduced price (59p) egg
and cress sandwiches, and a reduced price (83p)
mini pie thing. The egg and cress sandwiches were
mostly innocent, but I have been trying to avoid
bread and other obvious sources of starches and
sugars again. On the other hand they were part of
Tesco's (alleged) Healthy Eating range - which was
almost certainly why they didn't taste very nice.
The mini pie had all sorts of things wrong with
it, and if I was really serious I would throw it
away rather than eat it. In theory they are very
nice, but maybe it is because I have always eaten
previous ones cold, straight from the fridge, that
I tend to think they are a bit tasteless. These
particular mini pies use greasy pastry to enclose
some fatty, and chemical laden, ham topped off
with a very sugary chutney/relish type stuff. It's
madness to eat them, but that is probably what
I'll end up doing tonight.
Everything else I bought from Tesco was very
healthy sort of stuff - several bowls of ready
made salad, and some peri-peri (flavour) ready
cooked skinless chicken. I also bought some salad
dressing from Tesco's Healthy Eating range. The
figures they quote look good until you notice that
they are for a mere spoonful of dressing. How in
Lennon's name is a spoonful of dressing going to
add anything to a bowl of salad ? At least, when
used by the pint (!) they do add a pleasant taste
to a salad. I had two salads last night (as well
as the horrible egg and cress sandwiches). One
salad was topped with the ready cooked peri-peri
(type flavour) skinless chicken, and the other was
with the last of some ham trimmings I had bought
from Aldi the last time I was there. The first was
dressed in low something or another "Balsamic
Dressing", and the other with "French Dressing".
The latter didn't seem to have a very useful
flavour, but it did add a little something,
whatever that something was.
I'm not sure how it happened, but I didn't
go to bed until quite late last night - where
anything beyond 9pm is quite late. I think it was
10pm before I even tried to go to sleep, and last
night it did seem to take longer than the previous
couple of nights before I fell asleep. Some of my
sleep was good, and some was bad. I remember
turning over a couple of times and my "floating
ribs" going crunch when I turned onto my left
side. That left my chest feeling a bit tender for
a lot of the night. I think I was sleeping mostly
quite well when I woke up from an erotic dream at
3am.
What made that dream very strange was that I
cannot actually recall seeing the object of my
carnal desires (to put it strangely !). It was
like some mating ritual that birds, maybe bower
birds, do. I had rivals, and I have no idea who
they were, and we had to provide a pair of
International Rescue style boots to our intended
loved one. I'm not exactly sure what International
Rescue (aka Thunderbirds) boots are supposed to
look like, but the boots in my dream were sort of
like a pale grey, with a hint of blue suede
version of a Dr Martins boot. From the vague
remembered image in my head, everyone's offerings
all looked identical, but somehow I knew that mine
had been accepted. It was all rather vague and
mysterious, and I was very keen for part two to
start when I fell asleep again. Maybe it did, or
maybe it didn't. All I can recall is that from 3am
onwards I didn't sleep at all well.
This morning I feel basically OK, but not as
good as yesterday. Nothing hurts beyond the usual
stiffness and creaking that is usual on any day,
but more so on a damp morning like today. My chest
is not aching at the moment, but that comes as a
surprise because it has been doing lot of
clicking, grating and popping this morning. There
were times when it felt like my whole sternum was
swinging loose as I walked along. Maybe the lack
of energy I feel this morning meant that I didn't
walk vigorously enough to really upset my chest
superstructure. Maybe it is not a lack of physical
energy, but just that the low grey clouds mean
extra effort is needed to push through the gloom !
Tonight is boozing night, and although I am
going to try and limit myself to three or less
pints, I think it is going to be enjoyable....well
maybe. We are drinking in The Catford
Constitutional Club tonight, but that place
doesn't seem to get many nice beers any more - and
hasn't done for some time. That is a bit strange
considering it is the same staff as used to run
The Catford Bridge Tavern - and they used to have
some wonderful beers there. Maybe tonight they
will have something good on.
News from the neighbourhood : It doesn't
really effect me - unless, or until, they make a
massive mistake, but close by British Gas are
digging a big hole in the road. It must have been
really noisy for my close neighbours if they were
in during the day, and it must be a grand
annoyance to motorists with the road cut down to a
single, rather tight lane.
|
Wednesday 19th August
2015
|
08:00 BST
I'm just trying to think if I am justified
in saying that yesterday's weather was just as
disappointing as I expected it to be. Maybe it
wasn't quite always as dull as it could have been,
but overall it was a slightly cool (for summer),
and rather grey day. I don't recall bothering to
check my thermometer when I got home from work,
but I would not be surprised if it wasn't reading
something very close to the 20° C that was
forecast. I think that the forecast for yesterday
was one of the more accurate forecasts. So it's
good to know that the forecast for today has
started off wrong - but maybe just the timing.
This was the view from my bathroom window in
a north west direction at 5.30am. It's still a few
minutes to go before official sunrise, but it's
already light enough to see the houses and bits of
blue sky. Less obvious in this picture is the red
tinge on the cloud facing the rising sun.
This is the view towards the west at
06:00am. There is more blue sky visible, and the
eastern side of the clouds still have a hint of
pink (despite it not being obvious in this photo).
The weather forecast says that we could have some
brief sunny spells at around 11am today, and not
while I was travelling to work. In the hour and a
bit it takes to travel from Catford to Earlsfield
there was almost continuous sunshine. The sun was
still very low in the sky, and didn't carry any
noticeable heat, but it was nice and cheery. It is
still sunny now, but the clouds are definitely
thickening. If the sun was shining about three
hours before the forecast said it would, then I
hope the next major feature doesn't move three
hours forward. From 7pm, for maybe a few hours, it
is very likely to rain. Move that forward three
hours and I stand a good chance of getting wet on
my way home from work. Tomorrow could be grey and
wet, and so could Friday, but on Saturday the
forecasters are sitting on the fence - it will be
a sunny day and a rainy day !
I didn't feel that bad most of the time I
was at work, and maybe because of that I didn't
feel any exhilaration when I was going home from
work, and when I got home. At least I wasn't
suffering from a slightly earlier malady when I
was going home. Something like an hour before I
left work I felt ravishingly hungry. I could have
eaten a horse ! Fortunately the feeling faded away
before I started travelling - although maybe not
faded to nothing. I still had a rather
enthusiastic appetite which needed a lot of
control when I got home.
One other curious thing that I noticed on
the way home (and maybe earlier ?) was a change in
the way my chest was popping and clicking as I
moved about. Usually these strange sensation
appear higher up my chest, but yesterday there
were definitely some sensations from lower down -
practically at the bottom of my rib cage. Like the
sensations higher up are usually, these were
completely painless, but still feel damn weird
sometimes (and of course sometimes it does cause
some sort of painful inflammation that takes days
to settle down again). These lower pains
definitely feed my wild imagination that all these
chest pains and inflammation are the result of the
surgeon dropping his cigarette lighter, or
wristwatch in me when he did my quad heart bypass
operation almost 2 years ago. Of course I don't really
believe that happened, but I want to - just for
fun ! It would be so "Carry On" !!
My major failing last night was to eat some
peanuts. I had two bowls of salad for my dinner.
One had some bits of skinless "barbecue flavour"
chicken in, and was dressed with olive oil and
"velvety fig" flavour vinegar. The other had some
lean ham and a fairly generous splattering of
mayonnaise. Both were mostly innocent, but that
wasn't the case with the peanuts. Peanuts are a
source of huge amounts of energy - and flavour,
and delicious crunchy texture - and I had an
overwhelming desire for both. The only mitigating
factor is that I have learned to pour out a small
portion into either a small whisky glass, or small
plastic pot rather than take the whole big bag
with me. This method allows me to make a big bag
of peanuts last several days or more instead of a
few hours !
After my good sleep the night before, I
didn't feel so tired last night, and I allowed
myself to stay up until almost 9pm. Once I was in
bed I went through the typical thinking I wouldn't
get to sleep before falling asleep five minutes
later. I could easily wish that I had slept a lot
better, but it probably wasn't so bad a sleep. One
indicator that I was probably waking up more
frequently than I realised is that I recall
dreaming a lot - even if I can't remember much
about those dreams now. The most annoying thing,
although it could also be taken as a good sign, is
that I woke up 20 minutes before my alarm was due
to go off. I would have liked to have had 20
minutes more sleep, but maybe I didn't actually
need them.
This morning I have the usual background
aches and pains, and stiffness, but I actually
feel sort of good. Early morning sunshine lifts
the spirits, but maybe it also means a change in
air pressure, and maybe that has a beneficial
effect on some of the more rheumatic type pains
and stiffness, or just general creakiness. It is
not just this morning that I seem to have more
energy than usual - although that energy seems to
be concentrated in my legs. Sometimes, mostly in
the previous few days, my upper body feels half
dead with fatigue, and yet my legs almost feel
like they could still walk the 10 miles non stop
that they used to be able to once. This morning
may be an improvement on that because the top of
my body didn't feel semi-comatose as my legs took
me to work without too much strain.
While I have definitely had a few excesses,
and followed a few blind ends, I have tried to be
a bit careful with what I eat, and how much of it,
for the last few weeks (any maybe more), and on
mornings like this it does seem to be having a
beneficial effect. I think it was last week that I
reported I could squeeze into a pair of jeans that
I had not really been able to wear for a year or
more - and not only squeeze into them, but to
actually wear them to work for one day (though
that was a mistake). This morning my trousers do
seem to be very slightly looser, but more
significantly, although I could be imagining it,
there seems to be less overhang of my belt. The
effect doesn't last long enough unfortunately, but
for a brief moment in time it is sort of
inspirational. For instance, half my breakfast was
a small ready made salad from Sainsburys.
I must admit I was rather disappointed with
how much fat and sugar there was in a pack of
salad - until I realised that it included a sachet
of high fat, high sugar "creamy chive dressing". I
should have discarded that dressing, but I didn't,
and it was probably nicer for not doing so. At
least some of that dressing was clinging to the
side of the bowl, and so not licking the bowl out
may have saved a few micro grammes ! The other
half of my breakfast was a naughty but nice,
chicken tikka with stuff wrapped in flatbread.
Maybe tomorrow I might just have salad, and
discard the dressing - but only if the sun is
shining - which it is not forecast to do !
I have several things to do tonight, and all
should be easily achievable. I need to get a bit
of shopping in, and my hair needs washing. If I
still feel vaguely positive when I get back to
Catford I will do a most careful shop in Tesco.
Some more ready made salads, and maybe some lean
meat to go with them. Ready made salad is
definitely not the most economic way to eat salad,
but it is very convenient, and particularly so
when just buying for one person. I must make a
point of not buying any mayonnaise to put on those
salad - although it is probably no more evil than
a good sprinkle of olive oil and vinegar. I have
yet to work out why sometimes oil and vinegar is
more appealing that mayonnaise, or even salad
cream, but sometimes it is.
|
Tuesday 18th August
2015
|
07:53 BST
Until I got home from work it was bright,
and often sunny yesterday. I think the temperature
reached at least 20° C, and maybe a little higher.
Soon after getting home, maybe from about 5.30, it
started getting quite dull outside. In theory
there should have been three hours of daylight
left, but it was dull enough to needs the lights
on. This morning the temperature is a rather fresh
feeling 15° C, and there hasn't been a hint of the
sun. It is rather gloomy, and the forecast says it
will stay like all day. The only good thing is
that the temperature should rise to 20° C again,
and it should stay dry. Unfortunately it seems
that it will be like this for the rest of the week
until Saturday, when there might be some sunshine,
and it might also rain !
I felt pretty dreadful yesterday morning,
but as the day wore on I began to feel better and
better. Even the dreadful tiredness after an
extremely bad nights sleep seemed to evaporate. I
was feeling good enough that I deliberately didn't
even look for a bus when I left work, and I had an
easy walk to the station (which is often true, but
these days it sort of annoys me not to get a
little extra mileage out of my 60+ free travel
Oyster Card). By the time I arrived home I was
feeling sort of wonderful. I had no significant
aches or pains, and I didn't feel tired at all. I
even seemed to be breathing less hard after fairly
quick walk from the station.
I kept feeling like that all the time I was
moving around. As soon as I sat down to my double
salad dinner (one salad with pre-cooked salmon,
and the other with some cheese) I began to get a
few twitches from my chest, and maybe I began to
feel very slightly tired. I may have only been
slightly tired but I knew that I was running a
large sleep deficit, and so I made sure I was in
bed extra early - and by extra early I mean just
before 7pm ! Initially I tried to sleep on my
back, and if I had persevered I may have managed
it, but after a while I turned over on my side,
and my chest went crack !
From then onwards I had variable amounts of
discomfort from my chest as well as a few other
places that would seem to have nothing to do with
my chest. I may have fallen asleep by 7.30pm, and
although I woke up a few times during the night,
those periods were quite short. It is possible
that I managed to get almost 9 hours sleep, and
once again, if my alarm had not woken me up, I
could have got even more. I got up when my alarm
went off at 5am, and felt quite groggy for a few
minutes. Once that had settled down I still didn't
feel that good. My chest was not exactly hurting,
but it did feel very tender, and I suspected it
would not need much to set it off again. It may
have been quite handy that I had decided to wear
slip on shoes today because pulling up the laces,
particularly on my left shoe, usually causes my
chest to crack and pop in alarming ways.
I don't feel too bad now I am at work. My
chest still feels edgy, but at no time this
morning has it prompted me to take a couple of
Ibuprofen tablets to reduce any inflammation. I do
feel rather tired still, and maybe more so after
eating some breakfast - rather too much breakfast.
I wanted to see if I could buy a ready made salad
from the Sainsbury's "local" at Earlsfield, but I
couldn't see the sort of thing I was looking for,
but I did see some smallish pots of other stuff
like beans, sugar snap peas and peas, and chicken
and pasta. I couldn't decide what I wanted, and so
I bought them both - as well as a chicken tikka
and stuff on flatbread. The latter was very nice,
and the other two were so so. If I was really
disciplined I should have eaten only one of these
things. I'll just have to try and be more
disciplined when I get home and have dinner. Maybe
I'll have something similar to last night again.
That seemed relatively healthy. Then I'll see if I
can go to bed early again.
|
Monday 17th August
2015
|
08:13 BST
After a bright sunny morning it became
rather dull, and overcast yesterday afternoon.
That stopped it getting any warmer than it was by
late morning - perhaps 20 - 21° C. During the
night the temperature fell to 13° C, and that was
cool enough to trigger the heating on my train
from Catford Bridge to Waterloo East. The forecast
for today starts both right and wrong. It is 2° C
cooler than the forecast, but the day has
certainly started off nice and sunny. If the
forecast continues to be as correct then it should
stay sunny until early afternoon. We will probably
lose the sunshine when I head home from work, but
it should be pleasantly warm at around 21° C.
Tomorrow is not looking very exciting. The current
forecast says it will be overcast all day, and the
temperature may well stay under 20° C !
To help relax, or whatever, my crunchy
chest, I decided to wash a fitted sheet and two
pillow cases yesterday. I am not sure if it worked
on this occasion. I felt OK afterwards, but later
in the day I began to feel rather dodgy. The other
unfortunate thing was that there was not enough
sun left to completely dry that sheet, and I had
to bring it in to dry indoors while it was still a
bit damp. I seemed to spend quite a lot of
yesterday either scanning old photos, or laying on
my bed reading or snoozing. Eventually I'll sort
out some scanned pictures to show here.
When I finally went to bed, last night, I
felt really rotten. I was mostly OK until I laid
down when I had some pains in my chest area that
seemed to be a little different to the more common
"floating rib" pains that I suffer from a lot
these days. This was particularly so when I laid
on my side - either side. I did consider that it
could well be some more heart trouble rather than
bones, ligaments and muscles. It made getting to
sleep quite tricky, but I did manage to get at
least a couple of hours sleep in the night,
although it did seem that I was awake far more
than I was asleep.
At about 1.30am I got up and made sure that
my emergency rucksack, containing mini laptop,
mobile phone charger, and a toothbrush and
toothpaste, were ready to go if I decided I had to
walk to the hospital. I definitely didn't want to
do that because my hair was filthy, and I was
rather smelly after not washing at all yesterday.
Maybe if I had washed in the morning, and gone for
a walk around the shops, I would not have been
feeling quite so bad, but it's easy to say that
with hind sight. So I gritted my teeth, and
snatched sleep whenever it came. The best sleep I
got was the last sleep. I think it was almost 2
hours non stop, and if my alarm had not woken me,
I might easily still have been asleep now.
I still feel a bit dodgy this morning, but
only when I stop ! Walking to the station was easy
and comfortable. In fact it seemed very easy for
some reason. All the rushing about at Waterloo was
easy too, and curiously enough, didn't seem to get
me breathing as hard as usual. The same is true
for the walk to Catford Bridge station, and the
walk from Earlsfield station to work. Of course
now I am sitting down at my desk, and relaxed, my
chest feels sore again, but in the cold light of
day it is a different sort of discomfort to laying
in bed in the dark. I suspect my main problem
today will be extreme tiredness after getting so
little sleep - and not much of what I did get was
quality sleep. I had to really concentrate to stop
myself falling asleep on the train this morning !
Oh well, if worst comes to worst, I've washed my
hair, had a shower, and most importantly, I have
clean underwear on !
This morning Lucosade were encouraging
obesity by giving away free bottles of their sugar
water on the concourse of Waterloo station. It is
possible that the version in blue bottles is sugar
free, but how they can sell that as an "energy"
drink is a mystery to me. I guess all they want to
do is to try and hook more people on the taste of
the stuff at great profit for the company.
At just before 7am they were only just beginning
to set things up.
I'm not sure if these lot were station staff,
free loaders, or from Lucosade.
One happy man walking away with his free bottle
in hand.
I think it is going to feel good going
home from work today...or maybe it will seem
like hard work, but hopefully it will feel
good to actually get home. At the moment it
feels like it would be good to ignore dinner
and go straight to bed as soon as I get home.
Maybe I will have a snooze before doing
anything else - which might, or might not
include eating dinner. I doubt I'll be able to
resist having dinner, but somehow it feels
like it might be a good thing if I did.
|
Sunday 16th August
2015
|
10:59 BST
We were almost back in summer yesterday !
It was dry all day, and it was usually sunny. I'm
not sure how warm it got. Maybe the top
temperature was only 22 or 23° C, but it felt
pleasant enough, and lower humidity made for a
less sticky day. During the evening it cooled down
a fair way, but it was still something like 14° C
at sunrise. It is now 20° C, and I now feel a bit
more comfortable than I did earlier. At the moment
the sun is shining, and with luck there will be a
lot more sunshine today - although the rather
stale weather forecast is less optimistic than
that. If the forecast is to be believed we will
have a sunny morning tomorrow, but the afternoon
is going to be light grey, or worse. Of course
when the latest forecast is issued, tomorrow
morning, all that may be completely different.
After my productive morning I did rather
less in the afternoon. I was going to go to Priory
Live in Orpington, but I decided that it would be
better to go and see Chain play at The British Oak
pub in Blackheath last night. I'm not sure that
even back in the past when I was far fitter and
livelier, I could have done both on the same day.
So I abandoned going to Priory Live in the
afternoon, and went to Aldi instead. I didn't buy
that much food in there, but I did buy many litres
of liquid (if you count a bottle of olive oil as
well). It is possible that I lugged back 10 litres
of assorted liquids - no wonder my bags were so
heavy ! It was doing stuff like that, that stopped
my chest healing properly after my operation
almost 2 years ago now. It feels like I might have
added a bit more damage yesterday.
It seemed surprisingly easy to get myself
out of the house to see Chain last night. It
entails a 6 or 7 minute walk to the bus stop
(maybe only 5 minutes, but I've never actually
timed it), and then a 9 minute wait for a bus
(that felt longer). 20 - 25 minutes later the bus
arrives at The Royal Standard in Blackheath, and
from there it is a good 7 or 8 minutes walk to The
British Oak pub. It was always a bit of a
bothersome walk when I was a lot fitter, and
absolutely murderous when I was suffering from
angina. The main reason is that it is uphill -
even though it doesn't look like it, but it most
definitely looks downhill when going home again -
and is a far easier walk in that direction. The
road crosses over the (urban) motorway heading
towards the Blackwall Tunnel, and there is a good
view from there.
This picture was taken either during, or just
after the sound check. The more significant
thing about it is that the lights were still on,
and the picture is sharp-ish and usable.
Chain do have some lights, but having them at
floor level, at the side of the stage area, and
almost slightly behind Jo is not the best
placing for them.
You can tell by the grain that I really had to
force this picture of Dave, Steve and Chris.
As tradition dictates, while the boys play the
song Crossroads, Jo comes out to watch them from
among the audience. There is more light toward
the bar, but it is still dim enough to make the
garden look quite bright despite being well
after sunset.
It's funny how most people preferred to stay
nearer the bar where there was more light, or
maybe they just to prefer to keep back from the
PA - not that it was very loud last night.
I only stayed for
the first set last night. I didn't feel
particularly tired, and could have stayed
later, but I felt I didn't want to push it too
far. Walking downhill, even if it is only a
very gentle slope, was far easier than when
going there, and the cooler night air meant
that I was drier, and less sticky, when I got
to the bus stop than I was inside the pub.
Unfortunately I just missed a bus. The buses
are every 15 minutes so it wouldn't be too
terrible a wait, but there was an alternative
bus that I had never tried before, and that
was only a 7 minute wait. So I got the 202
instead of the 54.
I've always thought that the 202 takes a
slightly longer route, but there may not be
much in it, and last night the river was not
hanging around. I reckon the 54 might still
have dropped me off at the end of my road a
few minutes earlier, but in the grand scheme
of things it made little difference. Once I
had walked from the bus stop to home I put the
peri-peri chicken I had bought the previous
night, into the microwave, and heated it up
while I got changed.
It was nice munching on that chicken,
but ultimately it left me feeling a bit
unsatisfied. I could have found more to eat,
but somehow I resisted the temptation, and
went to bed. Despite leaving the gig early, it
was still midnight when I got to bed, and it
might only have been a few minutes after
midnight when I fell asleep. As far as I know
I slept solidly for about 5 hours. That must
be almost a record these days ! I did get up
for quite a while at 5am, and I didn't seem to
feel to bad. Eventually I went back to bed and
slept for an unknown length of time. When I
next woke up I felt lousy - and I don't feel
too wonderful even now.
Various bits of me hurt - although not
usually at the same time. For some unknown
reason both my knees were hurting while I was
in bed. A little later it was the turn of my
left elbow to hurt. I've had an intermittent
headache of the very mild, but still annoying
variety. The two semi-numb fingers on my left
hand felt unpleasantly tingly for a while. (I
used to think that was a good sign that
something good was happening to the damaged
nerves, but nothing ever changed - at least
not after some initial healing in the first
couple of months after I came out of
hospital). If I had the time or inclination I
could probably get a doctor or surgeon to cure
the numb fingers problem, and it is possible
that a doctor, or surgeon, or vet, could go
some way towards reducing the crunchiness of
my chest. My chest is particularly crunchy and
sore this morning - although sometime in the
last 20 minutes it seems to have settled down.
I hadn't noticed before but it feels fairly OK
as I write this.
There are probably many things I could
do today, but at the moment I can only foresee
doing to of them. The first is to try and
learn some grammar, or spelling. Why do I keep
finding that I have written me instead
of my, or vice-versa ? It must be the
result of some sort of brain damage ! The
other thing I am going to do is to scan some
old photos. Yesterday afternoon I set up the
scanner next to my PC, and gave it a quick
test on a very old photo....
I think this picture was taken in spring
1965. It is of three of my primary school
friends while we were on a school journey to
Holland and Belgium. I think this picture was
probably taken in our hotel while we were in
Holland. I think I almost know their names. On
the left is Philip Church. The boy in the
middle was called Jeremy as far as I can
recall, but I can't think what his surname
was. On the right was Bobby Crocker. The photo
was taken on a Koday Brownie 44A camera - a
fixed focus, and fixed exposure time camera.
It is a shame I never understood those terms
then or I might have taken some better
pictures. It is amazing this one came out as
well as it did with just indoor lighting -
although I have electronically improved it a
bit after scanning it.
|
Saturday 15th August
2015
|
11:05 BST
The details are now hazy because nothing
extreme happened, but as far as I can recall, The
weather on Thursday was rather better than
expected...and as I type that the most important
bit comes back into focus. I was expecting to go
home from work in pouring rain, but it was
actually dry and sunny, although there certainly
was some heavy rain later in the evening !
Yesterday's weather was not terrible, and maybe
even not bad, but it wasn't all good. There was
probably more sunshine than I expected, but there
were also some significant showers during the day,
and once again, some heavy rain in the evening.
Both Thursday night and last night were rather
humid - at least that is how it seemed to me. It
took little effort (combined with some hot food,
chilli sauce, and maybe some booze) to raise a lot
of sweat ! This morning it is cool, just 18° C,
and apparently it is only going to get a few
degrees warmer, but today the sky is blue, and the
sun is shining. It also seems to be a lot less
humid. The weather forecast doesn't actually agree
with the idea of blue sky, and only begrudgingly
admits to some sunny spells this morning. It says
that the afternoon will be lightly overcast, and
it will stay that way until dawn, through tomorrow
morning, until lunchtime when there may be a few
sunny spells for a couple of hours...then it's
back to greyness again until the end of time -
possibly !
I felt pretty lousy at work on Thursday. So
I didn't go for the traditional after work drink,
and of course I didn't go to the open mic night
later in the evening. I think getting my shirt
wet, and chilling my chest in the morning did
nothing good to my chest, and it was creaking
worse than ever during the day. On top of that I
felt really tired - not sleepy tired, but a deep
fatigue. I think I can attribute most of it to the
weather. Partly from not sleeping properly when
the evening starts off too warm, and the mornings
too cold, but also just the typical extra aches
and pains that damp weather can set off in any
damaged joints, muscles, and other superstructure
of the body.
On Thursday night I decided that kill or
cure was the only option. So I hand washed some
shirts and underwear. The effort of doing that
usually straighten out my aching chest if it is,
as I assumed, the superstructure/subframe of my
chest, and not my heart giving out. Had it been
the latter I would probably be dead now. So it is
quite an accurate test ! It did sort out some of
the aches and pains, and as a result I may have
slept better - once I managed to dry out ! All
that effort generated a severe sweat in the humid
air.
I had booked yesterday off work because it
looked as if it might be a nice day. Well that was
what the forecast was saying a week earlier, but
the weather has been so unsettled that the weather
forecast was changing three times a day in a
failed effort to make it look more accurate. In
reality it turned out better than how it was
forecast 12 hours earlier, but by then I had
resigned myself to not doing much, and on Thursday
night I didn't think I would feel up to doing
much. However, by coincidence, Aleemah was also
off work yesterday, and with today looking better
for outdoor activities, she came over yesterday as
if it were a Saturday.
It was the usual meet her at the station,
and then go to the Wetherspoons pub for breakfast
followed by watching a DVD together here.
Yesterday's DVD was from the box set of "The Omen"
movies. Yesterday we watched The Omen III, and it
was just as bland as the previous "episodes".
Aleemah went home around 3pm, if I recall
correctly, and after she left I decided to lay
down and do some quiet reading for a while. It
didn't take long before I was fast asleep. I have
no idea how long I slept for. It might have been
as little as 10 minutes, or it may have been for
well over an hour. I really lost track of time
yesterday afternoon. What I do know is that I felt
a lot better when I woke up - although not so good
that I fancied going out in the rain to see Chain
playing in Greenwich. The last time they played
there it was raining, and it was quite
uncomfortable going there (although it was dry on
the way home).
So I decided to stay in and amuse myself.
One way of amusing myself was with some food. I
had eaten slightly sparingly for much of the day,
and so I decided to reward myself, if "reward" is
not too bastardised in it's usage here, and order
a takeaway. Some peri-peri chicken seemed to be a
good idea, but to meet the minimum charge of £12
for delivery, I had to pad out the order with
other stuff. What I actually had for dinner last
night was some chicken wings, some potato wedges
(but not all them because they were not very
nice), and a chicken burger with spicy sauce. The
peri-peri chicken is now safe in the fridge ready
to be heated up later today for my dinner.
I'm not sure how well I slept last night. It
seemed to be reasonable at first, although I got
up far too early. It was actually about 4.30am -
which is pretty stupid considering I didn't get to
sleep until gone 10pm. I didn't feel any worse
than I do most mornings these days - and that is
pretty bad. So I started to read the technology
news from The Register
- the website that helps me waste hours at work !
After reading for well over an hour I decided that
I was still very tired, and that I ought to go
back to bed. Having got back in bed I didn't think
I would get back to sleep - once again a very
inaccurate appraisal of the situation. The next
thing I knew was that several hours had passed by,
and I was feeling a lot more refreshed.
I don't know if it was in my first period of
sleep, or that later second period of sleep, but I
had some wonderful dreams - wonderful in as much
as my imagination was really working overtime to
come up with such scenarios. Unfortunately I can't
seem to remember anything but a snatch of one
dream. In this dream I was back working for
British Telecom (pre-privatisation), and I was at
one of the training centres - although this one
was purely imaginary. It seemed to have
several areas guarded by electronic alarms that
students were not permitted to enter. One such
area was a hospital that was attached to the
place, and someone had to see me through the
detector so I could visit someone. Once through
the detector I was left on my own to find the
hospital. When I did it was huge. All the beds
were lined up in aisles inside a place as big as
an aircraft hangar. I don't know where the figure
came from, but I knew there were 500 beds in
there, and most were occupied. I woke up trying to
figure out how I would ever find the person I was
looking for - which was made more difficult
because by then I had forgotten who I was looking
for !
I felt far more refreshed when I woke up the
second time, although I still needed to sit down
for 20 - 30 minutes to acclimatise myself to the
real world. It could have been the extra sleep
plus the rest, with even more sleep, that I had
yesterday, but I think the change in the weather
is just as much the reason why I feel almost good
today. I certainly felt good enough to wash two
semi big bath towels, a smaller hand towel, two
even smaller dishcloths, and an even smaller face
flannel.
They are now all hanging on the line, and
hopefully drying in the continuing sunshine. After
I hung them on the line I didn't stop to rest. I
next did a small backlog of washing up, but I
didn't stop there either. I then spent another 15
minutes selecting old paperwork (leaflets and
railway timetables and stuff) to dump in the
wheelie bin. I guess I should have put them in the
recycling bin, but it's too late for that now,
although I might do that with some other
paperwork.
That brings me up to date, and now I have to
decide what to do next. The simple answer is easy
- take a shower and get dressed for the outdoor
world ! The more complex question is where should
I go ? I would like to go to Orpington to take
some pictures at the Priory Live gig in Priory
Park, and I would also like to go to Aldi. Finally
I would like to go to see Chain playing in The
British Oak pub on the far side of Blackheath -
although that is not until almost 9pm. I wonder if
I have the energy for all three. I guess the least
important might be shopping in Aldi. I have the
peri-peri chicken for dinner, and I have lots of
tinned stuff as well as salad in the fridge. All I
would really like soon is a couple of bottle of
Diet Coke, and I can get that from the corner
shop. I guess I'll be going to Orpington in an
hour or two then.
|
Thursday 13th August
2015
|
07:45 BST
Contrary to how the weather was forecast
for yesterday, there were a few, albeit very
brief, sunny spells, and even when the sun wasn't
out, which admittedly was most of the time, it was
usually brighter than I expected. It also seemed
to be 2° than the forecast allowed for. My
thermometer was saying 22° C when I got home from
work. It didn't cool down much overnight. It was a
rather humid 18° C when I walked to the station. I
wore my raincoat as I walked to the station - not
because it was raining, but because it was
supposed to rain. Even with the coat not done up
it felt horribly sticky under it, and once I was
on the train I took it off. Eventually it did rain
as I walked from Earlsfield station to work, but
it was so light it didn't seem worthwhile putting
my raincoat on. I think it would have been wetter
(from sweat) inside it than out !
The forecast also mentioned the idea that
the sun might peep through the clouds for a while,
but it hasn't happened yet, and we have passed the
deadline for it. The rest of today will probably
be as grey as it is now, but it is almost certain
that at some time, and maybe many times, there
will be torrential rain. There is talk that today
and tomorrow will be so wet that it will be the
equivalent of the entire average rainfall for the
whole of August falling in just two days. Although
when you think about it that may not be too bad -
August is supposed to be a hot dry month with just
one thunderstorm allowed after dark on a week day
! The strength and timing of the rain will
determine what I do today, and tomorrow when I
have a day off work !
I achieved all my objectives after work
yesterday. I bought some shopping in Tesco on the
way home, and I trimmed my beard and washed my
hair in the evening. I didn't buy that much in
Tesco, but the bill was very high. That could be
something to do with the bottle of Tesco Special
Reserve whisky I bought.....and the bottle of
extra strength Jim Beam that grabbed my attention.
I also bought a lot of reduced price sandwiches,
and a couple of bowls of ready made salad. The
final ingredient(s) were the result of one of
those brainwaves (or brainstorms) that I get now
and then. Out of the blue came this sudden idea
that I wanted a steak (possibly plus kidney) pie.
At first I picked up some "chip shop style"
steak pies, but then decided that I would prefer
something slightly more substantial. I noticed
that they had a steak, and a steak and ale pie in
the same range as the goats cheese and sweet
potato pie that I ended up cremating in the
microwave over a few weeks back. The steak pies
also said that they were not suitable for
microwave cooking, but on the other hand they
seemed to suggest that they were fully cooked, and
just needed warming through, and a little more
colour added to the top of the pastry. I was far
more careful this time, but I did "cook" them in
my microwave oven, and while it wasn't all that
pastry friendly, they were still very nice, and
filled the hole in my soul (or whatever it was my
brain was telling me needed filling).
One other objective I had last night was to
have another go at getting an early night. Once
again my bedroom was hovering between hot and
cold, and was rather stuffy. I should have left
the window open, but there was this idea that
there could have been a storm last night, maybe
even a thunder storm, and I didn't fancy that
waking me up. So I got on my bed, and pulled the
duvet cover (without the duvet in it) close, but
not covering much of my body, and tried to fall
asleep. It was also one of those nights where the
bed felt uncomfortable, although I think it was my
body that had the creases and wrinkles ! If my
memory is correct it was also one of those nights
where you fall asleep fairly quickly, but far from
instantly, while thinking that you will never get
to sleep ! Apart from waking up 45 minutes before
I needed to, and not getting back to sleep, I
probably slept quite well - although I am sure
there must be some sort of mythical sleep that is
far, far better if only I knew how to do it !
This morning I feel good and bad. I thought
my chest felt a bit crunchy when I was getting up,
but it doesn't seem to have given me any trouble
since. My stamina seems very variable this
morning. It seemed unusually hard work walk to the
station this morning, and I was breathing quite
hard by the time I had found my place on the
platform to wait for my train. The next bit of
hard work is the walk from Waterloo East to
Waterloo mainline station. The first bit is up the
ramp, and it is all done at a rush - commuter
style. Going up the ramp seemed unusually easy,
and I was overtaking quite a few people. On the
more level parts I was satisfied to keep up with
the faster commuters. I arrived at the mainline
station breathing hard once again, but it didn't
feel anything like the strain of the first bit of
walking. The last leg of the journey, the walk
from Earlsfield station to work, was done in light
rain, and so I may have done that a little faster
than usual, or I may not have bothered. I've found
that no matter how fast, or how slow I walk, it
makes very little difference to the time it takes
to walk - maybe just plus or minus 20 seconds -
and who cares about 20 seconds ?
It's Thursday, and that means it's drinking
night ! The venue for tonight is The Bricklayers
Arms in Beckenham, and on a bright dry day it is
almost a pleasure to stay on the train past
Catford Bridge to Clock House station, and then
walk down the hill to the pub. It's not a long
walk - perhaps 12 - 15 minutes - but it would be
most unpleasant in a thunderstorm, and there is
likely to be a thunderstorm at some time, in some
place anytime from mid afternoon to late evening.
I think I'll play it by ear as to whether I go or
not. With tomorrow booked off work, I had
originally thought that maybe I would stay out
late, and maybe even wander up the hill to The
Coach And Horse pub where there is a very friendly
open mic night on Thursdays. Now I am unsure if I
will even get as far as Beckenham. Probably not if
it is pouring with rain when I leave work, but I
also have to take into account what it might be
like when it is time to go home from Beckenham.
The more I think about it, the more likely it
seems that I will be having an early, and sober
night !
|
Wednesday 12th August
2015
|
07:46 BST
Yesterday turned out better than expected.
The cloud thinned out quite a lot in the
afternoon, and I seem to recall that the sun
managed to peep through a couple of small cracks
once or twice. While the thin, and occasionally
slightly broken cloud made for a fairly bright
afternoon, it didn't stop it raining from about
6pm, and possibly all through the night. It was
certainly raining up to half an hour before I
walked to the station. It's stopped for now, but
it still looks rather grim.
I showed this picture yesterday. It was a
screenshot of the weather forecast for today as
predicted 24 hours ago by the great super computer
that the weather forecasters use to try and
predict what they would see if the open the
curtains, and look out the window. It is the same
great hyper mega computer used to predict the
effects of global warming years into the future.
It is so good at looking into the future that they
could see that tomorrow would be quite different
to how they thought it would be yesterday. This
morning the forecast for today looks like this...
The latest theory is that there should be
sun and showers as I came to work - there wasn't !
The rest of the day is going to be grey and rather
cool until the chance of a quick flash of sunshine
at 8pm just before the sun sets. From what I can
see out of my office window I would have to say
that the forecast, made just a few hours ago, is
spot on for this hour. Quite how they forgot to
notice that the sun didn't stand a cats chance of
hell of shining through the clouds at the time
they were making the forecast is anyone's guess. I
think they might have got the temperature about
right for this morning, but with luck the forecast
will be very wrong this afternoon. A few more
degrees, and a bit of sunshine when I am going
home from work would be very nice. It would be
nice if the latest forecast for Friday, when I am
taking a day off work, turns out to be very wrong.
Heavy rain, and maybe even flash flooding, is the
latest forecast, and that is not good for any
outdoor activities !
I didn't feel terribly good at work
yesterday, and I felt decidedly average when I got
home. I wasn't in any great discomfort at work,
but I was not enjoying what should have been
fairly relaxing work. Some of it may have been
tiredness, and some of it may have been the
unsettled weather. Oh well, it can only get worse.
When I git home I decided that I ought to eat
differently to usual. That included no more
beetroot crisps - not that they are usual. In fact
they were a one off, although I could be tempted
to get another packet if I see any left in Aldi
the next time I am in there. Incidently, it took
well over 12 hours, maybe even eighteen, to flush
the red/purple beetroot colour through my kidneys.
That colour must really concentrate when they fry
the beetroot crisps !
Last night's dinner was steak - steak that
had been in the bottom of my fridge for several
weeks - with baked beans and a bit of left over
cheese. I took a chance and cooked the steak in
the microwave, and unfortunately I slightly
overcooked it. It was still nice, and still quite
tender, but it was a little dry. I should have
used the electric grill to give even more flavour,
but I can confirm that the microwave does work if
you can live without the charred bits (although
charred is not the word I am looking for - it
sounds far too harsh). I also tried the Polish
"roast" sausages I bought last week. I cooked them
in the microwave too, and they came out fine, but
I think they were actually cooked and ready to eat
when I bought them. So, in effect, I only
reheated them.
I intended to get to bed early last night,
and in a way I did go to bed early. The only flaw
in this idea is that I didn't put the book I was
reading down until it was actually a bit late -
and even then I couldn't get to sleep straight
away. It was warm in my room when I went to bed,
but it felt like it cooled down a lot in the night
(I left my bedroom window open all night). It
probably really mucked my sleep up. I don't think
I woke up that many times, but I seem to recall
having loads of dreams even if I can't remember
what they were about now...
Actually I can remember a few snips of
dreams. One was about a caramel coloured pony, or
horse, in a huge barn that was laid out like an
electro-mechanical telephone exchange. Another
dream was about a small rocket that I had built.
It turned out to have a major flaw in it's design.
To build up a good pressure in the nozzle it had a
plate bolted over the end of it. Once the
propellant was alight, and burning OK, the plate
had to be removed, but of course there was no way
of doing that without the propellant gases
shooting out sideways as the plate was removed -
and that would have burnt my hands as well as
wasting propellant. I recall a fragment of one
more dream. It concerned my toilet being blocked.
There was nothing at all in the bowl except pure
water, and a small bolt, and it was the small bolt
that was (somehow !) blocking the water from
flushing away....or something like that. It's all
very hazy now.
Sleeping poorly, with lots of tossing and
turning (probably) is not good for my chest, and I
think the cool damp weather is just making things
worse. It felt a bit creaky as soon as I had woken
up enough to be aware of it, and when I sat down
on the toilet I could feel like a ligament was
stretched tight between my left nipple and my
neck. After a few days, or more, of it not really
doing much, this morning it is back to all the
creeks, crunches, grinds and popping that feel,
more than sound coming from my chest. As I pulled
up my shoelaces there were several loud feeling
pops from in my chest. It felt a bit sore while I
was on the train, and I wished that I had taken a
couple of ibuprofen soon after I got up. It seems
to have settled down a lot since then, but it is
still a bit sore. I may still take a couple of
Ibuprofen if it it plays up again.
The rest of me is working well enough this
morning, although I still wonder where all my
breath went since I stopped smoking. As I walked
toward my train at Waterloo station it did feel
like my legs were working well enough that I could
almost easily run for a bit if I could have found
the breath to sustain it. I am tempted to think my
lack of breath is because I weigh a lot more than
I did when I was smoking, and while that is true
for the last few weeks (maybe months) prior to
going into hospital almost 2 years ago now, it may
not be true for earlier than that. Yesterday, and
the day before, I was wearing a pair of stretch
jeans that were 2 inches bigger than what was
always my usual size a few years back. The only
trouble with them is that they don't fit - they
are too loose ! This morning I am wearing a pair
of (I estimate) three year old jeans, and while I
will confess they are a slightly snug fit, they do
fit, and are comfortable to wear. I find it all
rather surprising. Maybe I have lost a bit of
weight over the last few months. That was always
the intention, but my method was so haphazard that
it was probably two steps backward for every three
steps forward. I know I can do far better, and
maybe getting back into these old jeans could spur
me on to try harder to get into some other old
jeans and trousers, but who am I kidding.....
There are a couple of things I ought to do
tonight, and one thing that I will do. I think it
is probable that I'll pop into Tesco on the way
home. If I can raise the enthusiasm I ought to
give my beard a severe trimming, and wash my hair.
I was going to wash it this morning but at the
time it seemed I would be walking to the station
in the rain, and I didn't fancy doing that with
wet hair......under the hood of my rain
coat.
|
Tuesday 11th August
2015
|
08:01 BST
The BBC's weather webpage was updated
several times yesterday to try and reflect what
was happening in the real world, and every guess
they made was wrong ! At least it was wrong for
Catford, although it might have been right
elsewhere in London ! All variations of the
forecast featured rain - sometimes just showers,
but even thunderstorms were hinted at. The reality
was that there was some light rain just before
midday. That lasted for no more than 10 minutes,
and while I waited for my train at Waterloo East
station, on my way home from work, there was the
very finest sprinkle of rain that lasted all of 30
seconds. Before that, as I walked from work to the
station, there was some sunshine. That definitely
wasn't in the forecast. Nor was the pleasant sunny
evening ! Maybe it is the way I interpret the
forecast that is wrong.
The picture above is a screenshot of part of
the BBC's online weather forecast for tomorrow. At
the top there is a blazing sun icon for Wednesday,
but when the day is broken down into hours the
blazing sun never appears. Only little bits of
sunshine peeping out around clouds. If you could
switch to the forecast for today you would see
that the day actually started 2° C higher than the
forecast - 17° C, and not just 15° C. The cloud at
the moment is supposed to be light, but it is
actually rather heavy, and the chances of a few
rays of sunshine breaking through mid morning, as
suggested by the forecast, seem very poor. The
rest of today is forecast to be dull, and at just
21° C maximum, it will almost be rather cool.
Not having to dodge falling rain, and with
part of my journey home being done in sunshine,
albeit a small part, although it was almost
sunny when I walked from the station to home, left
me in a good mood...sort of. Not so good that I
could no longer resist eating a packet of beetroot
crisps that I bought from Aldi when I went there
last Saturday. It is well know that beetroot
contains a strong purple-red dye, but what is
probably less well known is that it survives
frying, and seems to be concentrated by it !
I realise it is not a pretty sight, but this
is what eating beetroot crisps did to my tongue. I
won't show you what it did to my wee last night,
nor what my poo was like this morning ! It is
rather strange, but I am sure I once read that
depending on your genetic make up you would either
excrete that red dye by wee or by poo, but not
both. It seems I have proved that wrong, unless
that fact is only correct for non fried beetroot.
One of the problems with this poor excuse
for a Summer (or is it just a typical English
summer ?) is the high humidity. The problem with
high humidity is that it makes people sweat - in
my case, in my curent state of health, rather a
lot. This is most evident by the stench some
people give off, particularly in enclosed spaces
like buses and trains. I can only hope that my
theory that if other people stink then I probably
don't is correct - based on the idea that the nose
loses sensitivity to a stink when exposed to it
for too long.
Even if I don't stink then I surely look
bedraggled, and no more so than when I went to bed
last night. It may have been another effect of
those beetroot crisps, because I didn't eat
anything else that is contentious, but I was
absolutely dripping last night ! It made for
another late night getting to sleep, but
curiously, once asleep, I seemed to sleep
unusually well again. I have definitely lost out
on several hours of sleep in the last couple of
days, and I think it is starting to catch up on
me. Maybe it will be less humid tonight, and I'll
feel comfortable enough to get to sleep nice and
early...maybe.
This morning, apart from the agony of
learning to be a human being again, and getting
all the creases out of dozens of muscles, which
took the best part of an hour, I felt tolerably
well. In another hour, plus a few minutes of
walking from Earlsfield station, I started to feel
whatever that thing is that is slightly less than
good - maybe normal - sort of ! This was probably
helped by, once again, wearing a pair of
comfortable uncomfortable shoes. Like yesterday,
but in black instead of white, I am wearing a pair
of dirt cheap chemically smelly lace up plimsolls.
They have thin hard soles, and while that sounds
as if it is bad, it actually suits me quite well.
No cushioning means my feet slap the pavement
quite hard, and that can be slightly uncomfortable
unless I walk carefully, but no cushioning also
means there is nothing to ruck up under my feet.
Damaged insoles are one of the prime reasons for
my shoes becoming prematurely uncomfortable.
I'm not sure if, prior to yesterday, I had
ever dared to wear these cheap and cheerful
plimsolls to work, but I think I am tempted to
wear then to work more often - or at least I would
do if it were not for the fact that they are
wearing incredibly fast. I reckon I could possibly
wear through the sole by the end of the week if I
wore the same pair every day of that week. To
spread the load I ordered two more pair yesterday.
They are not identical in as much as I have
ordered slip on instead of lace up, but I think
that everything else about them should be the
same.
I actually ordered them while perusing on
Amazon's website looking for a zoom lens for my
new DSLR camera. It is possible I have come up
with a bargain - but maybe not. The lens I chose
was quite cheap, a lot cheaper than I was
expecting to pay. One reason for it being cheap
was that it was old stock, and Amazon informed me
that there was "a new version of this item". The
newer version was almost 4 times the price. So I
stuck with my first choice. Whether that choice
was a good one or not remains to be seen. The lens
has several semi-bad reviews. It's worst sin is
that when using a lot of zoom the periphery of the
picture goes out of focus slightly. For train
spotting that might not be good, but for close ups
of singers and musicians faces it might actually
be a good ides. In fact it could be a good idea
for any photo where where there is a central
subject that could be a flower or a face, or even
a bird, but not such a good idea for when the
subject fills the whole frame - like a locomotive
or car. Oh well, time will tell. I hope it will
arrive here at work before Friday (when I am off
work), and I'll be able to try it out at Priory Live
- which I hope to go to on Saturday if it is not
raining (or not raining too much).
I have a busy day at work, and I have yet to
raise the enthusiasm to be be busy. Oh well....
Tonight I have no great plans. I might get around
to setting up the scanner to scan some old
photographs, or I might do absolutely bugger all !
Hopefully I won't be dripping with sweat, and I'll
be able to get to sleep at a decent time. Then in
the morning it is back to work, and so we go round
the cycle one more time, and then another, but on
Thursday night I can break the cycle with booze
and maybe music too, because I don't have to get
up for work on Friday morning. Now that's
something to look forward to - no matter what the
weather is !
|
Monday 10th August
2015
|
08:13 BST
The best was to describe yesterday was to
say it was like a summers day in August - which,
of course, it was ! There was gallons of bright
summer sunshine, and a gin clear blue sky - most
of the time. It did start to get a bit cloudy as
evening approached. There was a slight difference
of opinion between my two outdoors thermometers,
but the consensus of opinion is that at one point
the temperature probably exceeded 27° C, and it
may well have hit 28° C. It was a warm, and rather
sticky night. This morning it was still 18 or 19°
C, but since sunrise there has only been one,
almost flicker of a ray of sunshine because it is
very cloudy, and will probably remain so all day.
There is even rain expected just after midday.
Some of it could be heavy, but if the timing of
the forecast is right, it will be dry again when I
leave work....Of course that was the forecast, but
in the last hour it has changed. It will now rain
from about 1pm until gone 5pm, and I will probably
get wet going home. Never mind - the forecast also
admits that there could be a few rays of sunshine
as well as rain at 5pm ! The temperature may
reach 23° C if we are lucky.
Yesterday was a most successful day.
By midday, the double duvet cover I had washed in
the morning was dry (except for one very slightly
damp corner). So I took that in, and let that last
corner dry with it hung over the banister rail. I
then washed another double duvet cover, and hung
that on the line to dry. I don't know where I got
the energy from to wash two double duvets, plus
some miscellaneous laundry, and go for a 2
mile (or maybe slightly more) walk in the
park, but I found it from somewhere, and it
didn't feel too taxing at all (provided I had a
nice rest between tasks). Actually I did more ! I
also filled a dustbin liner with more old
paperwork and other assorted crap from the back
room, and tossed it in the wheelie bin. I haven't
had such a productive day in years - and it felt
rather good.
Maybe it felt a little too good, or maybe it
was the sticky, sweaty heat last night, but my
body refused to relax and go to sleep when I
wanted it too. I think I lay there tossing and
turning, while gently dripping, until 11pm, or
maybe even later than that. It wasn't ideal with
work in the morning, but once I got to sleep, I
slept passably well, and I don't feel too sleepy
here at work - yet ! I could list quite a few
things that hurt, or ache, or grumble, but somehow
I feel sort of good this morning. Quite a lot of
my body, although mostly the unimportant bits,
seems to be working quite well this morning. Even
my feet feel relatively comfortable despite
wearing some really cheap and smelly Chinese
plimsoll type shoes. (When I say smelly I don't
meant sweaty feet smelly, but a sort of
chemical/adhesive smell that hovers between
pleasant and unpleasant).
Considering it is going to be a grey, and
later on, a wet day, I will probably be feeling
extra miserable when I get home, and the lack of
sunshine will sap my strength, so I am thinking
that I will go into an instant vegative state when
I get home. That might be a shame because there is
one thing I would like to make a start on sometime
soon. During my clearing up I uncovered a packet
of assorted photos that I took years ago on my old
Practika camera, and I think some of them are
worth scanning to reproduce electronically.
One annoying thing about my old photos is
that I too often used too much zoom. In the worst
instances it meant that some of the subject was
clipped, but in most case it means there is very
little space to clip and centre the picture. More
advanced photographers could print their own
pictures, and in doing so they could choose an
area of picture to enlarge and centre when
processing the pictures in a dark room. I didn't
have that facility, but now photography is all
digital I can do that. So I have learned not to
use too much zoom - usually ! However, I'll just
have to play it by ear when scanning, and editing
those paper photographs. Talking of
photographs.....
Ever fizzing, gut bloating, tooth rotting,
pancreas busting......No, sorry that was Pepsi's
slogan.
A promotion involving tweeting by Coca Cola.
All these pictures make me want to rush home for
a delicious glass of ice cold Aldi own brand
cola !
|
Sunday 9th August
2015
|
11:30 BST
It stayed dry, and it was warm yesterday. A
little more sunshine would have made it a better
day, but it was a pretty good day by recent
standards. It's difficult to know if today is
going to continue being good, but it is currently
very good. I think there is hardly a cloud in the
sky, and it is already 21° C. If the sun stays out
it could push the temperature to above warm,
perhaps 26° C, by late afternoon. Of course the
miserable old BBC website says that it will get
cloudy in an hour or two, and although it will
still be mostly bright, it will only bet 24° C
maximum. Oh well, that is still better than the
forecast for tomorrow. That says it will be a
cloudy day with a shower, maybe even a heavy
shower at 1pm !
Yesterday was a good day - more or less. I
felt very satisfied to do all the laundry in the
morning, but felt less satisfied when I had to
tell Aleemah that trains were only running from
Charing Cross, and not from London Bridge station
yesterday. Aleemah had to get the bus from London
Bridge instead of the train. That didn't seem to
bother her, but it would have infuriated me ! With
the extra time I had I went out an bought a big
bag of stuff from the SAM 99p shop (which is
different to the ordinary 99p shop - but not much
different !). Much of the big bag was taken up by
two boxes of man sized tissues. Everything else
was small.
The other useful outcome of Aleemah getting
the bus was that it is easier to meet her in the
pub than elsewhere, and getting there a bit early
allowed me to have an extra half pint of beer.
Aleemah went home a little earlier than
usual. I wanted to get a few things done before
relaxing prior to going out in the evening. So I
had a small bite to eat, and then I laid on my bad
to read a few pages from the book am
reading. I then promptly fell asleep, and it was
almost 4pm before I woke up. I needed to stretch
my legs, and decided that going to Aldi would
serve the dual purpose of getting some shopping
and stretching my legs. The only trouble was that
it tired me a bit, and also what I bought, a cold
ready cooked chicken, was so tempting that I ended
up not going out.
So I've missed another Chain gig, and I feel
a bit guilty about it. On the other hand, I don't
feel that I had a dull or boring evening despite
the only highlight being munching on microwave
reheated roast chicken ! It was a nice relaxing
evening after a busy morning, and it set me up for
a busy morning this morning. I can't recall
anything bad about last night so I guess I must
have slept well - and I even had a bit of a lie in
!
It wasn't until just gone 7am that I hand
washed another duvet cover, and hung it on the
line. I then washed a few more items and hung them
up indoors to dry. I must have been really
buzzing, or maybe just maniacal, because I then
went out for a 2 mile walk around the park.
Actually the latter was not complete madness. I
had heard some ambiguous news that there might
have been an event in the park that involved a
live music stage yesterday, and I wanted to see if
there was any evidence that it had happened
yesterday, or if it was just someone showing some
old photos. I did see a couple of "Exit" signs
pinned to trees, and that suggests something
happened recently, but there was no other
evidence. Still, it was a good opportunity to take
some photos.
This old telephone pole with nice pointy finial,
and old insulators, is not in the park, but is
on the way there.
A rough sleeper in the park.
Lovely blue sky !
Compared to how it used to be when I was a boy,
the River Ravensbourne that runs through the
park, is incredibly clean, and the water often
crystal clear.
At the bottom of Westdown Road, at the south end
of the park, is this relic from the past. A sign
pointing to the British Rail stations - Catford
Bridge and Catford stations - now owned (but not
run by) Network Rail - successor to the madness
that was Railtrack who took over from British
Rail after it was stupidly privatised.
It's now a nice hot
Sunday afternoon, and possibly time to do some
more work. The duvet cover on the washing line
must be close to being dry, or certainly dry
enough to finish airing indoors. That means
that if I could find the energy, and I think I
may be able to, I could wash another duvet
cover, and get that out on the line to dry
during the rest of the afternoon. If I do
that, I will only have two unwashed duvet
covers to wash (plus the one on my bed at the
moment). I never thought I would ever get so
many washed - I guess we have had a serious
lack of sunny weekends this summer, because
having to hang them on the line where they can
drip as they please, has been the main hold up
to washing duvet covers. Everything else can
be wrung out enough to dry indoors. I think I
will feel very smug and satisfied to get one
more washed this weekend !
|
Saturday 8th August
2015
|
07:10 BST
The trouble with yesterday was that the
weather was not exciting enough to remember. It
didn't help that I was indoors during the best
part of the day. So what do I remember ? Well, it
was dry, and bright, but I don't recall it being
all that sunny. It was certainly warm, although
probably only 23 or 24° C warm. The bad thing is
that it was quite humid, and it made for a bit of
a sticky journey home. Today was forecast to be
bright and sunny, but there has been no sign of
the sun since sunrise ! Oh bugger ! The forecast
has changed since I checked it yesterday
afternoon. The new forecast says that we will only
have sunny spells now and then, and the first
won't happen, if it happens, for a few hours yet.
Nevertheless, the top temperature today is still
forecast to feel warm at 24° C with a relative
humidity of 44%. It is currently 17.5° C by my
thermometer, and that is close enough to the
forecast of 18° C to make no difference. The odd
thing is that the forecast humidity is 86%. Now
that sounds rather high to me, but it doesn't feel
like it is high. Maybe I have this all wrong. If
yesterday was like the forecast for today, with a
humidity of 44%, then lower numbers seem to feel
drier than high numbers...but that can't be right.
Can it ?
Hopefully the air is not carrying too much
moisture in it because I want to add a lot more to
it. It is still rather early in the morning, but
to take advantage of the sunny weather today,
which isn't going to happen now, or so it seems, I
was up early washing a duvet cover - quite a heavy
one ! It is now hanging on the line waiting to be
baked dry in the sunshine that might not happen !
In some sort of demonstration of masochism, I have
also washed three shirts, a t-shirt, and a mini
table cloth. They are all drying on a clothes
horse indoors.
Going back to yesterday, and work, apart
from seething from the edict about giving a whole
two weeks, or more notice just to take off one
miserable little day, was otherwise fairly
satisfying for a change. I completed stage one of
a little project designed to amuse me. If I could
have been bothered, I could probably have
completed it within a day, but I managed to string
it out to nearly three days.
So I left work feeling reasonably satisfied,
and glad to be going home. It was a pretty
bog-standard journey home with just one small
variation to current conditions. The train from
Waterloo East was slightly less busy than usual
for some unknown reason. I had a block of 4 seats
(2 facing 2) all to myself. That used to be common
before the work at London Bridge started, but it
is possibly the first time it has happened since
then.
I contemplated either getting some shopping
from Tesco on the way home, or going out again to
get some shopping from Aldi, but there was a third
way that satisfied all immediate needs, and was
quicker than both - The Turkish Express
supermarket. I bought some Diet Coke, some pots of
bean salad, a pair of Polish roast sausages, and a
bottle of Fentimanns
Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger. That
orange drink was quite pleasant, but nothing to
rave about, and it's sugar content means it can
only be drunk after three days of complete
starvation. I suspect it would be a bit nicer if
it was less sweet and a bit sharper...but not too
much ! I haven't tried the Polish (at least I
think they are Polish) roast sausages yet, but I
am guessing they will be rather tasty !
I did very little of any consequence last
night. I ripped a few more compilation CDs, and
added the files to my "radio station on a stick"
collection of music that I take to work on a USB
memory stick (and also keep and use a local copy
at home). That music collection, played on random,
is now up to 126 hours long. Some tracks still
repeat after a few hours, but it still sounds
random enough to be enjoyable.
Maybe it was just like any other night, or
maybe it was the transition between week and
weekend, or maybe it was because I didn't do
anything to feel good about, or whatever, but last
night was one of those nights when I felt
restless, and I ended up eating more than I
planned. I had planned....no it wasn't exactly a
plan, but more of a hope that I might not eat too
much last night. I had a nice salad for my dinner,
but it was later, while trying to watch three TV
programmes at the same time - two Star Treks and
The Avengers - that I just got frustrated, and
really all I wanted was a nice cigarette to relax
with. Instead of a cigarette I had a couple of
small bags of Hula Hoops - which are going to kill
me quicker than a cigarette would !
The other thing I did last night was to
drink far more ice cold orange squash than I
seemed to excrete through the night. I think I had
three icy cold pints of squash, plus a pint of
Diet Coke, and I assumed I would be up half the
night peeing. Maybe I was dehydrated or something,
but as far as you can estimate these things, I
only peed a pint or two during the night
(including when I got up this morning). I guess I
must have sweated the rest away somehow - although
I don't recall it being a sweaty night. I am
certainly a bit sweaty now after doing my early
morning hand laundry - particularly that big and
heavy duvet cover !
It is now high time I got myself ready to go
out and meet Aleemah at the station in a couple of
hours time, and I still need to tidy the living
room up a bit before we come back here to watch
(hopefully) the last "The Omen" movie sequel !
After Aleemah has gone home I need to do some
intensive relaxation, or something like that,
because I want to try and drag myself to a Chain
gig at The Chatterton Arms in Bromley.
I snapped this bus before I realised that it was
just a London tourist bus. It looked old, and
indeed the "J" registration says it is 1991
vintage, and I wondered if it was in private
preservation. I suppose it is in a way, but I'm
not sure if carrying tourists around London to
show them the "sights" really counts as "in
preservation". It's just a tool, and will be
worked until it breaks !
|
Friday 7th August
2015
|
08:55 BST
It's hard to admit it, and assuming my
memory is correct, but I think it was a nice day
yesterday. It was warm and dry, and although more
sunshine would have been better, there was just
enough sunshine to make it look a bit like a
summers day in August ought to look (and feel). I
am unsure what the exact temperature was, but I
would take a guess that it was approaching 25° C
sometime in the late afternoon. During the night
it cooled down to just 13° C, but it is forecast
to be bright and sunny for most of today, and the
temperature is expected to rise to 23° C this
afternoon. Of course it was sunny earlier on, but
now it seems rather cloudy. How well that fits
with forecast is debatable, but I think I will
optimistically assume that the sun will soon come
out again, and that I will go home from work today
in a blaze of sunshine. Tomorrow was going to be
sunny all day, and with a top temperature of 25°
C, but overnight the forecast has changed to add a
lot more cloud, and with a top temperature several
degrees less.
Last night's Thursday night drink was first
of all in The Jolly Farmers pub near Ladywell, but
we didn't like it in there, and we went over the
road to The Ravensbourne Arms. I had two pints in
each pub - which was more than I intended to have,
but two in each seemed to be a nice balance.
I had met Jodie at Ladywell station to guide her
to the Jolly Farmers, and I walked her back there
when we finished in The Ravensbourne Arms. I would
normally walk back home from Ladywell, but with my
60+ Oyster Card it was free to get on the train
with Jodie, and while she continued to Elmers End
station, I got off at Catford Bridge and walked
home from there - I estimate it is probably around
half the distance of walking from Ladywell.
It was nice to get home, and even nicer to
take off the shoes I was wearing. They were not
terribly uncomfortable......maybe something closer
to quite a bit uncomfortable ! It was a bit weird
in that they were mostly uncomfortable to parts of
my feet that other shoes are not - even other
uncomfortable shoes ! It was also nice to get home
to have some dinner. For the third evening running
it was cheese and onion rolls. I was rather more
careful about the amount of onion and cheese I
used, and I seem to have suffered no ill effects
from them this time. It does make me wonder if my
little bit of gut trouble on Wednesday was
anything to do with the amount of onion I consumed
(although it might have made matters worse).
I guess four pints of beer left me drunk
enough to really impair my self control because I
gave in to some basic urges and had some ice cream
out of the freezer. I had two little tubs of ice
cream in there that I had been saving for some
rainy day, or some day when I could justify a
little extra sugar in my blood stream. I
definitely should not have had them last night
after four pints of beer, but I couldn't seem to
stop myself.
I don't know if it was purely the weather,
or whether my raised blood sugar level, and raised
blood alcohol level, had anything to do with it
(probably), but last night was one of those
infuriating nights when it was shivery not to be
under the duvet, and sweaty if I was. So I ended
up having quite a lousy sleep, with loads of weird
dreams, as I attempted to sleep with some bits of
me covered, and some bits uncovered. I think
hugging the duvet like a drowning man clinging to
a life saver, instead of throwing it off, or
getting under it, was not the best way to sleep,
and when my alarm woke me (which is a rarity) I
felt rather rough. It seems to have set off my
"floating rib syndrome" again.
I barely noticed any problem with my chest
yesterday, but so far this morning I have had
several "events". While pulling up the laces on my
left shoe my chest made quite a big CRACK type
noise (felt more than heard). It was almost as if
something had broken in there, and maybe it did !
I was hanging up a few t-shirts on a hanger at
arms length, and at about head height, when I had
quite a painful twinge near, or across my left
breast. The pain peaked quite sharply for half a
second, then dwindled away over the course of the
next 5 or 10 seconds. The legacy of all that is
that I have an area of very mild discomfort over
part of my chest. You could hardly call it a pain,
but it is sufficient to be slightly annoying.
There has been other annoyances this
morning. The first annoyance was, in the grand
scheme of things, really rather minor except that
it did got me money - maybe somewhere in the
region of £1.40. To my utter amazement, the 06:33
train to Charing Cross (via Waterloo East, where I
get off) was cancelled. It is usually extremely
reliable, but not today !
If you want to be an extra in a movie, or
maybe even be picked to play a major role, you
could get down to Waterloo station this morning,
and get in the way of the camera crew....or
something (well they do make films about
moviemakers finding stars and starlets hanging out
near film sets - at least I seem to recall some
storyline like that).
As the next picture shows, this sign is near
ground level, right in the middle of the
concourse. To read it you will actually have had
to pass the point where the camera is !
I guess this chap in his hi vis jacket will get
a mention somewhere in the interminable credits
at the end of the movie that modern movies have.
Could he be the "best boy" which always looks so
perverted in movie credits. He's obviously not
the "clapper loader" - another job description
that sounds highly dubious. Maybe this guy is
just "master of the filming notice".
Filming is often very boring work. I think I
could 9 people in hi vis jackets, plus one
person in civvies (maybe a bemused bystander, or
an actress) hanging around doing nothing while
the cameraman lines up his next shot. Maybe the
man with his arm straight out is the "focus
puller", and maybe the man the other side of the
camera is the "clapper loader". All their names
will probably end up in the 26 hours of credits
at the end of every modern movie.
|
Thursday
6th August 2015
|
08:20 BST
The weather was incredibly variable
yesterday. It's hard to say it was good, bad or
indifferent. Much of the day was overcast, but the
sun did come out a few times. Sometimes the cloud
was very dense and very dark, and sometimes it was
almost milky white. There were a few splashes of
rain during the day, and as far as I am aware they
were all just light showers. At around 7pm I saw
one brilliant flash of lightning, but the long
delay until I heard the peal of thunder suggests
it was several miles away. Maybe off towards
(roughly) the south there may have been more
thunder and lightning, but I didn't notice any
more in Catford. By 9.20pm the clouds were
breaking up a bit, but there was only a very
monochrome sunset.
The other strange thing about yesterday was
that I was not sure if it was hot or cold. During
the afternoon I kept seeing 25 or even 26° C on my
thermometer, but it didn't seem to feel
particularly warm. I began to wonder if my
thermometer was broken (or the battery in the
external sensor needed changing), but as the
evening started it started dropping, and by the
time I went to bed it was showing 19° C - and it
felt like 19° C !
This morning there was almost a slit in the
clouds on the eastern horizon that allowed through
a bright sunny sunrise. Unfortunately it was a
very red sunrise, and that indicates bad weather
ahead. Sure enough, with half an hour the clouds
had sealed over that gap, and now the sky is just
one unbroken mass of grey clouds. The forecast
says the clouds will actually become black at
around 11pm, but only for one hour ! After that
they just be light to mid grey again until 5pm
when we will be treated to a full hour of
brilliant sunshine, and presumably blue skies too.
After the hour is up the clouds will return, and a
splash of rain is possible for later in the
evening. Of course there could be other
interpretations of the weather forecast, but that
is how it looks to me !
I felt unusually good both mentally and
physically yesterday afternoon. I may not have
done that much on the scale of the wider world,
but getting two lots of laundry done was very
satisfying even if one load was just five pairs of
underpants and a face flannel. I also did as I
suggested I might, some more tidying up in the
back room. I virtually had to jump up and down on
the contents of the wheelie bin to do it, but I
managed to force in a fair sized bag of rubbish.
The bin will be emptied again sometime today, and
theoretically I could start to gather another bag
or rubbish or two as soon as I get home. I don't
think that will happen tonight somehow, but I can
foresee it won't be too long before I clear the
last of the stuff from what should be the dining
table. The only trouble with that theory is that
I've now almost edited the crap on it down to
stuff that I really do want to keep !
I was in that curious state that I assume
most people have at one time or another, but it
could just be me, where I feel both tired and not
tired when I went to bed. I had done some physical
stuff during the day, but (in theory) not enough
to wear me out. So I didn't feel any great
physical need for rest, but I was yawning a bit,
and yet my brain felt very wide awake. Of course
all my excuses as to why I shouldn't have been
able to get to sleep came to nought after I fell
asleep far quicker than I expected, and on the
whole I slept OK-ish.
This morning I woke up feeling fine until I
got out of bed and thought about it more, and the
I felt lousy for half an hour. Once I had gone
through the delicate transmogrification from
asleep to awake, I felt far better. Apart from a
brief worry that my stomach upset was returning
while I waited for the train at Catford Bridge
station, I guess I feel fairly good today. I could
feel many times better in a more perfect world,
but I don't seem to have any particular pains to
moan about just yet. I do feel old and worn out,
and decrepit, and overweight, and out of
condition, but none of those things are what you
could call painful. So I am just content to
quietly rot away in my little corner of reality
(or fantasy).
There are two big stories today. The first
is that it is Thursday. So I am looking forward to
a couple of pints of beer, but possibly a maximum
of three, after work in a venue that I haven't
been notified about yet. The other news is the 24
hour tube strike. I don't use the London
Underground to get to and from work, and with no
tube service anywhere near Catford, and just one
station at least half a mile from Earlsfield, I
was not inconvenienced by extra passengers using
National Rail as a substitute for the Underground.
Of course it did provide a photo opportunity at
Waterloo !
Waterloo Underground Station with the shutters
half down, and a couple of HiVi suited
"bouncers" outside.
It was still a bit early, 06:55am, but Waterloo
station seemed less busy than usual. maybe the
crowds would come later, or maybe many people
who usually need to use the tube too a days
holiday from work.
The entrance to the Underground near platforms 7
to 9 (at a guess) also had it's gates closed.
|
Tuesday 4th August
2015
|
07:46 BST
The weather forecast for yesterday
turned out to be almost right. That's happened a
few times recently, but I hope they don't make a
habit of it because the forecast for today is not
terribly inspiring. Yesterday ranged from good to
bad, and ended as good again. Just as the forecast
predicted, the early morning sunshine gave way to
light clouds, and then those clouds thickened and
grew darker in the afternoon. It was seriously
dull outside when I left work to go home. On the
way I felt a few light drops of rain, and my train
passed through a very brief, and very light
shower. It was dry, and beginning to slowly
lighten up as I walked from the station to home.
At that time it was about 25° C. A couple of hours
later and the sky looked like this.....
It looked rather delicious. It's just a
shame that the camera I used, my little Samsung,
couldn't capture all the delicacy of the colours.
This morning it was still 14° C - which is neither
warm nor cool....well maybe a little cool, but not
cold, and the sky was nice and clear and blue -
which is what you would expect after that glorious
sunset. Sadly, if the weather forecast turns out
to be correct, we will lose the blue sky by
midday, and the afternoon will be lightly overcast
until early evening when we could see a few sunny
spells before sunset. It should remain dry, and
warm, but only 22 or 23° C warm.
It felt strange to be almost free of
discomfort for most of the working day yesterday,
and I didn't feel any particular discomfort going
home either. In theory I could have done something
interesting or useful on the way home, or after I
got home. I did have a few thoughts about washing
a couple of t-shirts, but the dark gloomy sky
seemed to knock out and inspiration for that. On
top of that, I was feeling a bit to warm and
sweaty to mess around in hot soapy water. I think
the humidity was probably rather high yesterday.
There was one other reason for not doing that
laundry, and that was a feeling of a slight
disturbance in my gut.
That disturbance was later helped along by
my dinner. To clear out the fridge of stuff that
had been in there too long, I made what was going
to be a low fat, very low sugar, and high fibre
instant stew. I ruined one of those lows by adding
some sliced chorizo sausage to the ready cooked
skinless, barbecue flavour, chicken strips, green
beans, peas, tomato purée and chicken oxo cubes. I
sometimes wonder why I like chorizo sausage. It is
full of lumps of fat, and has lots of fibrous
sinew or meat that gets stuck between my teeth. It
does taste nice though ! It was all boiled up in a
generous amount of stock in the microwave oven,
and it was very nice, but all that hot liquid
often does funny things to me an hour or so later.
Last night was no exception, although it
could also be something to do with the pasta salad
stuff I had on Sunday that gave me indigestion, or
it could have been something else entirely. All I
know is that an hour, or maybe two after eating
dinner I had to make a rapid exit to the toilet.
There's no need for details, but I will say that
after that it felt like I wouldn't need to go to
the toilet for a whole week ! I felt good after
that, and had a comfortable night in bed. I think
I slept OK, and managed to clock up many hours of
good sleep, although I did seem to have a
repeating dream about pasta with a sauce that was
a bit like chilli con carne, but without the meat.
It was tomato with chilli and red kidney beans.
The peculiar thing is that it seemed to be being
sold in a fried chicken shop, and if you bought an
adult portion you got two kids portions for free.
I seemed to dream variants of that basic idea on
multiple occasions. It was all a bit weird - and I
woke up feeling hungry !
This morning was another morning when, apart
from a sort of empty/hungry feeling, I felt almost
good - although that might be a big "almost". I
guess it is now a permanent fixture that I seem to
need a good half hour to shake off the effects of
sleep, or laying down all night, but after enough
time had passed it would have been difficult to
complain about anything except a slightly tender
feeling chest. It didn't actually hurt, but it
felt like it would if I was not careful about how
I moved. The lack of discomfort waned a bit as I
towelled myself dry after my shower, and waned a
bit more when I put on my shoes.
I decided to take a chance on wearing the
other pair of cheap shoes I bought last Saturday.
When I first tried them on I realised that I would
have to wear socks with them to stop them rubbing
in certain places. So this morning I put on a
brand new pair of socks, and my new shoes. The
verdict so far is that they are comfortable in
some ways, and not so comfortable in others, but
they also feel like they could become comfortable
when broken in - if they don't break me first
(which doesn't seem likely). Although cheap and
nasty, they are not simple canvas trainers that I
have favoured for some time now. If they do break
in they could be good for walking in if I ever get
out on any long walks again.
It wasn't just me who was feeling better
than normal (where normal is the average of the
last 6 months - maybe). The trains seemed to be
running very smoothly this morning - although I
didn't notice anything different as we went along.
What I did notice is that I managed, for the first
time ever (I think), to get the 07:03 Guildford
via Chobham train from Waterloo, and here's a
picture to prove it (well it's a sort of proof !).
Here's a few very big "ifs" ! If
it is not as dull as the forecast says it is
likely to be, and if my new shoes are
seeming comfortable, I might go home from work via
some sort of scenic work. If I don't do
that, and if I have any reason to feel
good when I get home from work, than maybe I might
do something housework related - maybe laundry, or
maybe even filling another extra strong rubbish
bag with rubbish/junk from the back room. I may
not have room in the wheelie bin at the moment,
but it will be emptied on Thursday (usually), and
there should be enough room in there for two
additional rubbish sacks over my normal usage.
What is a more likely scenario is that I'll go
home via Tesco, and end up eating something
terribly inappropriate while watching TV. Oh well,
we can all dream.... |
Monday 3rd August
2015
|
08:07 BST
The weathermen keep reminding up that last
month, July, had two extremes - beginning and end,
and hot and cold. The beginning of the month, 1st
July, was the hottest July day ever with 37° C
being recorded somewhere in the UK. The coldest
July day "ever" at just 1° C was in some very
unlucky place in the UK on the last day of the
month. Summer to winter in just 31 days ! Maybe
this August can try and be a bit more consistent,
but it's not starting all that well. While
yesterday was a rather splendid day, today is not
looking so good. There were some dull periods
yesterday, but it was mostly sunny, and the
temperature hit at least 25° C, and maybe 26° C.
Today started off warm, about 18° C, although
maybe a bit more humid than I would like, and it
was sunny. It was sunny when I walked to the
station, and it was sunny on one side of the train
as I travelled to Waterloo East. The view out the
other side of the train was of grey clouds, and by
the time I arrived at Waterloo East those clouds
had covered the sky. It is unlikely that we will
see much more, if indeed any more sun today, and
thick black clouds are forecast for when I am
going home from work. The top temperature today is
forecast to be 23° C, and that could be high
enough to trigger some thunderstorms tonight.
Tomorrow is not looking much better !
I never did get to go out yesterday
afternoon as I intended. After doing so much hand
laundry in the morning (plus some backbreaking
path sweeping), I was feeling rather peckish.
Eating some "Mediterranean flavour" (based on the
typical local cuisine rather than the taste of the
sewage infested sea water) pasta seemed like it
would be a good idea - but it wasn't ! It was
probably the hot Mexicana-like cheese that I had
with it that did the damage, but I ended up with
indigestion that was bad enough to put me off
travelling.
The afternoon was not completely wasted
because I did a little more tidying up in the back
room - the room that has accumulated all sorts of
stuff from paperwork to old computer bits to
railway bits and pieces over the years. My task
yesterday was to throw out an old cat carrier, and
while doing so, to throw out lots of unwanted bits
and pieces that had accumulated around it. I was
sort of reluctant to throw out an old flat bed
scanner. It was bought in the days of Windows For
Workgroups 3.11, but still worked perfectly,
albeit incredibly slowly, when running Windows XP.
If the optics were clean it gave quite good
results too. Nevertheless, I have a much faster
scanner that is part of a combined HP scanner and
printer. The printer no longer works, and that is
probably why I found in a skip at work, but the
scanner still works beautifully, and it works with
absolutely no effort with Linux - something the
old scanner wouldn't do.
I have now revealed another two square feet
of carpet in that back room, and almost filled up
the wheelie bin ! The only unpleasant thing is
that I also uncovered up a scattering of old mouse
droppings. I have seen no overt signs of mice in
the house for a long while now, and hopefully I've
seen the last of them, but I wonder.....
Somewhere, under yet more clutter, there is a hole
in the floorboards next to the skirting board
where, at a guess, an old electric socket used to
be before the house was re-wired. I know there was
one in the living room that mice were using to
come up from under the floorboards, and I filled
that one. The hole in the back room is still there
- somewhere - and I am thinking I ought to try and
fill that before winter starts to avoid any of the
little darlings seeking a warm room for the night
!
I slept delightfully well last night. Maybe
it was all the hard work I did, or maybe I was
just feeling good in some way that I no longer
recognise. I think I probably got close to a full
eight hours sleep, but maybe it was less. By
judging it how I thought I could feel after doing
lots of physical hard work yesterday, I feel
pretty good. All the lifting of wet laundry, which
in the case of the big towel, and the duvet cover,
could be quite heavy, seems to have done more good
than harm to my "floating ribs". I have noticed
very little clicking, popping, or grinding
sensations from inside my chest since doing that
laundry, although I do have a sort of soft pain
over a large part of my chest this morning.
That pain joins up with, or did join up with
a sort of acidy, almost burpy mild but annoying
stomach pain. That pain seemed to fade away as I
approached Earlsfield, and eating a couple of
sandwiches seems to have finished the job.
Curiously enough, the dull mild ache from my chest
also seems to have faded to a very low level - so
low that I had to stop and think if it was still
there. Maybe all these pains and more will come
back once I get out of my chair and do something,
but for the moment I almost feel comfortable. If I
started reading some news off the internet I
reckon I could fall asleep with ease - and
probably will !
I have no definite plans for tonight. If I
go home under thick threatening clouds I will
probably lose any inspiration to do anything at
all, but if the sun should come out, in complete
defiance of the weather forecast, I could be
tempted to wash a few t-shirts, and some
underwear, but that is pretty low priority stuff.
If there was room to put more junk in the wheelie
bin, I could be tempted to uncover another square
foot of carpet in the back room, but with the bin
not being emptied until Thursday I have to leave a
bit of space in there for smelly kitchen waste.
Maybe I'll just watch some TV and vegetate ! |
Sunday 2nd August
2015
|
10:50 BST
The weather was pretty
good yesterday. More continuous sunshine would
have been nicer, but there were plenty of sunny
spells, and while it wasn't hot, it certainly felt
comfortable warm. Today may not be quite as good,
although the forecast says it should be better in
at least one respect. It is currently 21° C, but
it is expected to rise to 25, or even maybe 26° C
by late this afternoon. I am a little perplexed at
the moment. The forecast was last updated at 19:07
on Friday, but I am sure it is now showing that
there will be more sunshine than it did yesterday.
It is sunny at the moment, but it wasn't earlier,
and there are still quite a few clouds visible.
Many of the clouds are very high whispy ones. They
don't count, but there are some heavier ones lower
in the sky. If one of those gets in the way of the
sun it will block it completely. Tomorrow it's
back to work weather - mostly, but not completely
lightly overcast, and the temperature ranging from
a comfortable 18° C first thing in the morning, to
only 23° C in the late afternoon.
I probably should not be alive now, but I
seem to be, and on the whole I feel fairly good.
Apart from the dream where I lost a tooth, I slept
quite well last night. It could have been better,
a lot better, but it was rather good by recent
standards. I think I finally got up around 8.30am,
and that means that I had a nice lie in - or it
should do. I actually got up at 5am, but after an
hour I went back to bed again, and a couple of
hours passed without me even being aware I had
fallen asleep. I woke up again feeling better than
many morning, and after half an hour to
acclimatise myself to the waking world, I had a
shower and prepared for action ! This morning
"action !" was to do some laundry - and quite a
lot of it !
My finest achievement was to (hand) wash a
medium sized bath towel, and a double sized
duvet cover. The latter needed a lot of
manhandling, but fortunately on a day like today
I didn't need to wring it out too much, and it
should drip and dry fairly quickly in the sun.
I also washed five short sleeved shirts. They
are drying indoors.
Finally, a mini tablecloth, and a small towel
drying on the banister rail.
Doing all that
washing certainly raised a bit of a sweat, and
I wonder how many calories it burned. Probably
not that many. Maybe only in single figures -
such is the way of my world. Amazingly enough,
well amazing to me, I didn't stop there. After
I had hung the duvet and towel on the washing
line, which contrary to the order I showed the
pictures, were actually the last two items I
washed, I decided to sweep the garden path -
or at least the bit that runs beside the house
from the back door to the garden proper.
It needed quite a bit of sweeping, and I
could feel my back start to complain, but only
a bit, and hopefully there will be no lasting
effects. Of course I was doing all these
physical tasks without the benefit of the
drugs that throttle my heart back, and maybe I
couldn't do them when it is throttled back. I
imagine that my blood pressure is probably
high enough to scare my doctor silly, but I
feel OK, and, as I said a few paragraphs back,
I am still alive. I haven't had a stroke, or a
heart attack - yet !
Maybe that will happen this afternoon if
I do something I an toying with. My friend
Aleemah, who is into all weird stuff, and
seems to believe in it just like Christians
actually believe in God, is up to diabolical,
or pagan, or druid stuff in Greenwich this
afternoon. I am thinking of spying on her, and
her weird friends with my extreme zoom lens
camera. I have warned her to ignore any
strange men with cameras in the bushes ! It
seems like it would make for a nice afternoon
walk, but I'll see if I can raise the
enthusiasm for it after I've put my feet up
and done some reading for a while.
|
Saturday 1st August
2015
|
20:26 BST
The weather was rather
variable yesterday. Sometimes it was cloudy, and
sometimes it was sunny, and sometimes it was both
! The temperature was definitely higher than
previous days, but I cannot recall exactly what it
was. A figure like 24° C seems likely. After a dry
and clear night I expected the temperature to be
quite low this morning, but by 9am, with a mostly
clear sky, it was approaching 17° C. It has been a
mostly sunny day, and it has felt a lot warmer
than the 22° C that my thermometer was registering
this afternoon. With the sun now below the
treeline, it is already down to 18° C, but the sky
remains clear. By early morning it is forecast to
drop to 14° C, but it will slowly warm up during
the day. Some warm breezes, and some sunny
intervals are predicted to raise the temperature
to 25 or 26° C. Now that feels like summer - if it
happens as the two day forecast says it will
happen !
As usually seems to happen, the mild
persistent pain from my inflamed ligaments, and
other bits of chest tissue, faded away during
yesterday morning. From then on my chest still
felt tender, but provided I avoided some of the
movements that I know aggravate it, I was mostly
pain free for the rest of the day. I was further
cheered by walking to the station after work in
hot, and dazzling sunshine. Sadly that didn't
last. As I waited in the sunshine for my train on
Earlsfield station I could see that it was very
overcast in the direction of Waterloo, and sure
enough, by the time my train arrived at Waterloo
it was looking very dull outside. Curiously
enough, it seemed brighter, and there might have
even been a bit of sunshine, while I waited for my
train a few hundred yards away, but facing a
different direction, at Waterloo East station !
It was nice to get home after work
yesterday, but there was no special reason for it.
I didn't do anything but relax - except when I was
editing photos, but even that was relatively
relaxing - probably. I guess it was all that
relaxation that made me feel very relaxed about
getting to bed despite feeling very tired at times
while I was at work. I prepared some pointless
photos from my little journey to Forest Hill for
the Thursday night drink, and I prepared a couple
of photos taken in the morning at Waterloo station
concourse.
New Cross Gate station sign. |
Brockley station |
Honour Oak Park station |
This building used to be The Forest Hill
Hotel pub. Click on this picture for a
full sized picture. |
The significance of
that last picture of The Forest Hill Hotel is
that it was a pub that was just a hundred
yards, or so from the rear gates of where I
used to work in the mid 1970s, and where quite
a few happy lunchtime drinks were had. Now the
place has gone the way of many pubs. It closed
down sometime in the last 10 years (maybe),
and seems to have been converted into flats -
and also has a For Sale sign on it.
This cardboard looking telephone was on
the concourse of Waterloo station yesterday
morning, and still there in the evening. It
was to promote their campaign to stop nuisance
calling.
The model is festooned with hundreds of
lightbulbs to draw attention to it. I think
there was some sort of touchscreen on the
front of it to control the lamps.
One more view of the "telephone" glowing
it's bits off !
This morning I
met my friend Aleemah for breakfast in the
Catford Wetherspoons pub, and to watch a
DVD afterwards. She has decided she wants
to watch The Omen movie series. The week
before last we watched the first one, and
today we watched The Omen II. I have to
confess that I don't really enjoy watching
these films. The plot is amazingly thin,
and it seems most of the film is just
filler. I have no idea if the series is
based upon a book, but it feels like it
was based on a short story that has been
padded out to fill four films !
After Aleemah went home I was going
to wash a towel, and a few shirts. It was
ideal weather fro drying a towel on the
washing line in the garden, but I never
got around to it. I had a light lunch, and
then laid on my bed to read a few pages
from a magazine. It wasn't long before I
put the magazine down, closed my eyes, and
fell asleep. I have no idea how long I
slept for, but it might have been for as
long as a whole hour.
It took a while to wake up properly,
and get the creases out of my body and
brain, but once I managed that I went out
to do a little shopping. I have concluded,
rightly or wrongly, that a reason why some
of my shoes are uncomfortable is because
they are now too big for me. I know it is
rather naughty, and is dicing with death,
but with a devil may care attitude, I have
not arranged a prescription to top up my
drugs, for a few weeks now - Actually I
think it is probably closer to a whole
month since I last took the complete set
of pills. Well the result of this is that
my heart is now not being throttled, and
is able to pump blood all around my body
now - including my feet. The result of
that is that for some time my ankles and
feet have not been swollen. While there
may well be fatal downsides to this course
of action, it is nice to see my feet back
to normal - and normal feet mean back to
normal size shoes !
So this afternoon's shopping was for
some spare, correctly sized shoes, and I
struck lucky. Peacocks, on the high
street, like many stores, are having a
sale, and I bought one pair of cheap and
nasty trainers for just £3 - knocked down
from £12 ! They are the type that falls
apart, getting progressively more
uncomfortable, after just a weeks worth of
intensive use. Worn one day a week for
work, they may last 6 or 7 weeks if I am
lucky, but for just £3 I can't complain
too much, and they are a nice colour !
I bought another pair of trainers
that are more substantial, and I am hoping
they will be good for walking long
distances. The only downside is that
unlike many, if not most of the trainers I
wear, I don't think I can wear these new
ones without wearing socks. The sides
sides seem unusually rough on the inside,
and I think that without socks they will
chafe badly. That wouldn't be a problem
except that I have discovered that I don't
really like wearing socks. I don't know
how I do it, but I always seem to make
socks ruck up under the sole. In that
state they are quite uncomfortable to walk
on.
Today I should be at Pettswoodstock
- the all day music festival in Petts
Wood. I know many of the bands playing
there, and there would be some wonderful
photo opportunities. The only trouble is
that I don't have the stamina for an all
day event (where all day is actually
midday to midnight), and I really don't
like how crowded it can get. The crowds
can be a real pain in the neck. I hate
standing up in front of people to take
photos, as several bands would have liked
me to do, and the crowds make it difficult
to move around for different angled shots
and stuff. Plus they make it difficult to
get to, and buy, some awful fizzy beer,
and they make it difficult to get outside
the venue to the porta loos that are lined
up in the road outside (or where when I
went a few years ago). It was my
experience of it a few years ago that made
me decide that I just couldn't raise the
enthusiasm to go again. The only thing
that might have got me there was a
backstage/photographers permit - if such a
thing existed. Chris, from Chain,
suggested that he might have been able to
sort something of that nature out, but I
have heard nothing since. So tonight I
stay in not taking photos, and I don't
think I miss it at all.
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